Say NO to Smart Meters

[Baxenden Bank]

In some ways, from the point of view of the consumer, it arguably is a bad thing.

Right now, if I need something done that uses electricity, I just do it - I don't worry about when. It's nice and simple. But if charges become variable, the inevitable consequence is that people will start thinking things like "Hang on, do I need to cook my dinner now? Is electricity expensive at the moment? Will it be cheaper if I eat a couple of hours later?" That's going to make using electricity more complicated and more stressful. I can't see it having a good impact on people's lives.

I appreciate there are reasons why it would be desirable to balance the load at the electricity supply end, but it doesn't look so good at the consumer end.

What if I'm halfway through cooking my Sunday roast and I get a text to say the price of electricity will double at 1200? Ditto with a washing machine. Or my economy 7 storage heaters. Loads of people come home from the nightclub at 0130, all put their electric fires on, so to balance / reduce the load the price either goes up (which I have no knowledge of, being tucked up in bed) or my storage heaters get turned off and I freeze for the next 24 hours? Or as seems to be the gist of the comments, I end up paying top whack to put my electric fire on during daytime hours because the storage heaters didn't get chance to warm up as much as they should.

No thanks to 'smart' anything where I don't have full control over what it does. Sending a reading back fine, but it's not exactly a difficult job )for most people) to read the meter and send the numbers to the supply company by letter, email, on-line or app.

 

[najaB]

What if I'm halfway through cooking my Sunday roast and I get a text to say the price of electricity will double at 1200?...

Not going to happen. The price differentials between high and low rates will likely be smaller than existing Economy 7 tariffs.

 

[The Lad]

Has anyone got a source for half hourly wholesale electricity cost?

 

[AM9]

What if I'm halfway through cooking my Sunday roast and I get a text to say the price of electricity will double at 1200? Ditto with a washing machine. Or my economy 7 storage heaters. Loads of people come home from the nightclub at 0130, all put their electric fires on, so to balance / reduce the load the price either goes up (which I have no knowledge of, being tucked up in bed) or my storage heaters get turned off and I freeze for the next 24 hours? Or as seems to be the gist of the comments, I end up paying top whack to put my electric fire on during daytime hours because the storage heaters didn't get chance to warm up as much as they should.

No thanks to 'smart' anything where I don't have full control over what it does. Sending a reading back fine, but it's not exactly a difficult job )for most people) to read the meter and send the numbers to the supply company by letter, email, on-line or app.

I doubt whether the scenario that you describe will be anything like what will actually happen. Just what proportion of the 25million plus households do you expect go to nightclubs, let alone all get home at 01:30? Maybe you ought to stay in more.
Firstly, I would imagine just a few cost levels, e.g. off-peak, similar to current economy 7 times and costs, maybe a couple of medium rates and a peak rate for the times of highest demand, e.g. early evening, particularly in winter. The impact would be to nudge enough consumers to change their habits such that available generating and distribution resources could cope with changing overall demands without breaking the country's economy upgrading them. It's exactly what happens with rail fares every weekday.
The alternative might be much higher flat rate charges 24/7 which will put 'the poor' in an even worse position than now; or maybe frequent power cuts which at least will be democratic and not dependent on wealth or need.

 

[HSTEd]

Not going to happen. The price differentials between high and low rates will likely be smaller than existing Economy 7 tariffs.

Why?
Economy 7 was originally concieved as a fairly minor reduction in prices at night, we now have tarrifs where its fully 70% cheaper.

Renewables and the standby power markets being what they are mean that peak power will be provided by diesel generators and very expensive battery banks.
And OCGTs if you are very lucky, there will be an enormous price swing.
Hell even in France Option Tempo drives up to 40p+/kWh.

EDIT:

I doubt whether the scenario that you describe will be anything like what will actually happen. Just what proportion of the 25million plus households do you expect go to nightclubs, let alone all get home at 01:30? Maybe you ought to stay in more.

Remember, that not only demand swings will effect the price, production swings will also do so.
Imagine what happens if the wind drops in the middle of the night or whenever and throws the grid out of balance?

Firstly, I would imagine just a few cost levels, e.g. off-peak, similar to current economy 7 times and costs, maybe a couple of medium rates and a peak rate for the times of highest demand, e.g. early evening, particularly in winter.

The question then becomes, if we are only going to have a handful of tarrifs, why we need smart meters at all.
EDF implemented a six tarrif scheme with triggering-on-the-fly using close-to traditional technology?
Why does the government command a total rollout immediately?
Why not allow an organic rollout by selection as people desire?
The answer is probably that they don't think anyone will want one? Why not?

The impact would be to nudge enough consumers to change their habits such that available generating and distribution resources could cope with changing overall demands without breaking the country's economy upgrading them. It's exactly what happens with rail fares every weekday.
The alternative might be much higher flat rate charges 24/7 which will put 'the poor' in an even worse position than now; or maybe frequent power cuts which at least will be democratic and not dependent on wealth or need.

The country's economy is not going to be 'broken' by upgrading distribution capacity or peaking plant, both are almost hilariously cheap.
Researchers at PNNL estimated that the price of new distribution capacity in a developed grid (like ours) averages approximately $51/kVA.
The IEA estimates (page 40/215) 39% efficient OCGTs at something like $500/kWe overnight based on UK data.

Both these costs are very small compared to the estimated £11bn cost of smart meters.

You can buy a lot of peaking plant for that.

EDIT #2:

For comparison:
SNC Lavalin/CANDU Inc [page 4/5] estimated the cost of building four Enhanced CANDU 6 type reactors in the UK at only £11.2bn. And before anyone says anything - they have a reputation for delivering plants on time and on budget.
Which would produce ~3,000MWe of new capacity.

There are far cheaper ways to reduce the peak capacity crunch than smart meters - they have ulterior motives beyond simple peak shaving.

 

[najaB]

The question then becomes, if we are only going to have a handful of tarrifs, why we need smart meters at all.

Because they allow much more accurate metering and billing.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Not going to happen. The price differentials between high and low rates will likely be smaller than existing Economy 7 tariffs.

Standard Rate is more than double my Economy 7 rate; 14.742p versus 6.626p including VAT on my current deal.

Cooking a Sunday roast may not be a major difference. Difficult to tell as the 'customer displays' supplied alongside the smart meters don't actually do what is implied in the advertising i.e. allow you to walk around the house pointing it at your teenage kids and showing them how much their game console is using, unless you turn everything else off and just use a single appliance for an hour. Now, if accurate information on electric usage per appliance was available, that might just affect consumer behaviour.

My washing machine uses 1 unit per cycle so any slightly different rate isn't going to change my behaviour - getting up at 3am to save approx. 8p is not my thing, even for someone from Lancashire.

However, if my storage heaters switch to full rate for a couple of hours in the middle of the night we are into serious costs.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I doubt whether the scenario that you describe will be anything like what will actually happen. Just what proportion of the 25million plus households do you expect go to nightclubs, let alone all get home at 01:30? Maybe you ought to stay in more.
Firstly, I would imagine just a few cost levels, e.g. off-peak, similar to current economy 7 times and costs, maybe a couple of medium rates and a peak rate for the times of highest demand, e.g. early evening, particularly in winter. The impact would be to nudge enough consumers to change their habits such that available generating and distribution resources could cope with changing overall demands without breaking the country's economy upgrading them. It's exactly what happens with rail fares every weekday.
The alternative might be much higher flat rate charges 24/7 which will put 'the poor' in an even worse position than now; or maybe frequent power cuts which at least will be democratic and not dependent on wealth or need.

Not going to happen. My house is all electric and my non-heating usage is about 3 units per day. If the Economy 7 rate was the lowest offered it would cost me 20p per day, or at my daytime rate 44p. The fridge is a fair chunk of that cost (say one third), which has to be on all the time, obviously, to do its job. So I can save a maximum of 16p (44 - 20 = 24 less 1/3 for the fridge) by hovering over my smart meter and cooking my tea at unsociable times? And, as stated, the rate difference offered wont be anywhere near the Economy7 / daytime split I currently have. Simply not worth the effort. Far easier to save 16p by buying shampoo at B & M instead of Tesco.

The whole process is a massive waste of money, time and resources.

 

[AM9]

My washing machine uses 1 unit per cycle so any slightly different rate isn't going to change my behaviour - getting up at 3am to save approx. 8p is not my thing, even for someone from Lancashire.

However, if my storage heaters switch to full rate for a couple of hours in the middle of the night we are into serious costs.

I would expect smart meters (when their operation matures out) together with 'smart appliances' to give give customers the option of load shedding and/or rate stepping. We're talking about at least a decade here before such appliances become generally available. It's all about changing behaviour of consumers with rising restrictions on non-sustainable power. They will of course always have the option of just carrying on as they do now, except that they will get ever increasing bills as they will have rejected the ability to (automatically) be more environmentally responsible in their energy use. Nevertheless, just like with refuse recycling, there will still be the dinosaur climate change deniers, the difference is that they increasingly, will be paying for their refusal to respect their environment.

 

[najaB]

However, if my storage heaters switch to full rate for a couple of hours in the middle of the night we are into serious costs.

Storage heaters are a terrible idea anyway. I've changed from storage heaters to electric underfloor heating and I'm significantly more comfortable during the winter and my bills are lower now than they were before.

However, storage heaters will still be connected to the low-rate side of the meter so you don't need to worry about getting stung with high rate usage, and may well end up better off as the mid-morning and early afternoon will likely be low-rate so you'll be able to 'recharge' the heaters a little bit during the day.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I would expect smart meters (when their operation matures out) together with 'smart appliances' to give give customers the option of load shedding and/or rate stepping. We're talking about at least a decade here before such appliances become generally available. It's all about changing behaviour of consumers with rising restrictions on non-sustainable power. They will of course always have the option of just carrying on as they do now, except that they will get ever increasing bills as they will have rejected the ability to (automatically) be more environmentally responsible in their energy use. Nevertheless, just like with refuse recycling, there will still be the dinosaur climate change deniers, the difference is that they increasingly, will be paying for their refusal to respect their environment.

See, I'm all confused now.

Are smart meters about more accurate billing?
Or about offering the chance to use electricity at times of cheaper tariffs?
Or about offering supply companies the chance to charge more at peak times?
Or about managing electricity usage to prevent peaking?
Or about managing electricity generation to prevent peaking?
Or about persuading us to use less electricity overall for environmental reasons?

The 'sell' by the government has been poor, to the general public at least. Then again the 'sell' of green deal / insulation measures etc. was pretty poor. Vague non-specific cash savings without much technical back up, just high pressure telephone sales techniques and who would possibly refuse something 'free'.

I'm not sure you can simply lump recycling refuseniks into the climate denial changer camp. Again the government failed to show any kind of leadership leaving it up to individual local authorities who came up with an alarming variety of schemes, perhaps depending upon whether they had already locked themselves into restrictive and long term incineration contracts. I'd love to recycle responsibly but don't have space for that many boxes, bags, bins, sacks, varying days and weeks of collection at varying times of the year. Plus, as a pedestrian, I am banned from the household waste recycling centre anyway so a 'wheelie bin sandwich' it has to be for my forbidden items.

 

[najaB]

See, I'm all confused now.

Are smart meters about...

Most, if not all, of the above. Like almost all technologies, different people will get different uses and benefits.

It's like someone asking "What's this Internet thing for, anyway?"

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Storage heaters are a terrible idea anyway. I've changed from storage heaters to electric underfloor heating and I'm significantly more comfortable during the winter and my bills are lower now than they were before.

However, storage heaters will still be connected to the low-rate side of the meter so you don't need to worry about getting stung with high rate usage, and may well end up better off as the mid-morning and early afternoon will likely be low-rate so you'll be able to 'recharge' the heaters a little bit during the day.

As I say, I'm confused by the lack of information.

Will a smart meter still have 'two sides' as at present. Assuming it can be controlled remotely, and the charge rate is controlled remotely, surely two sides, (or hard-wired circuits), are not necessary. Rather there will be, say 24, periods in the day (I'll call them "charging hours") some of which are low enough for the storage heaters to turn themselves on to, and some are too high. Were I tech savvy, smart phone enabled, and with a house full of new blue-tooth enabled appliances, I would simply instruct each of my appliances the financial rate at which I was prepared to allow them to operate at. I would then take pot luck whether my tea was cooked (or house warm) when I came home as I play 'chicken' with the electricity supply company who are changing their prices by the hour according to what they read from my (and 25 million other) households usage and advance instructions.

Perhaps it would be easier to buy it by the hundredweight sackful, have it delivered on a lorry, and use it when I want!

Storage heaters may be an expensive option (I have no comparisons) but they exist. Replacing them with anything (even more modern, more efficient heaters) would cost money. It may be cost effective but will anyone promise the actual savings to be made and therefore the payback period, beyond a snake-oil salesman interested in earning his commission regardless of facts. Nevertheless it's still wasteful, and environmentally unfriendly, to remove something which is in good working order.

 

[najaB]

Will a smart meter still have 'two sides' as at present.

I suppose it might depend on the particular meter fitted, but two-circuit smart meters definitely exist.

Assuming it can be controlled remotely, and the charge rate is controlled remotely, surely two sides, (or hard-wired circuits), are not necessary.

It actually makes two circuits more advantageous - since the low rate circuit can be turned on and off independently of the high rate circuit. That means that when there is cheap power available outside the traditional 'Economy 7' they can turn the low-rate circuit on and you have the option to let your heaters recharge without having to know in advance when that cheap period would be.

Storage heaters may be an expensive option (I have no comparisons) but they exist. Replacing them with anything (even more modern, more efficient heaters) would cost money. It may be cost effective but will anyone promise the actual savings to be made and therefore the payback period, beyond a snake-oil salesman interested in earning his commission regardless of facts. Nevertheless it's still wasteful, and environmentally unfriendly, to remove something which is in good working order.

Since moving back to the UK I've had gas central heating (in one flat) and storage heaters and underfloor electric heat (in another flat). Gas central heating was the best (in terms of comfort, degree of control and running costs) and storage heaters were the worst, by far. Underfloor electric is in between but much closer to gas than storage heaters. The biggest problem with storage heaters is that unless you can predict today what your heat need will be tomorrow you are either going to be cold in the evening or end up wasting money.

It's impossible for anyone to promise savings since behaviour is likely the biggest factor in energy use - something as simple as regularly closing v not closing the living room door can make a massive difference.

 

[AM9]

See, I'm all confused now.

Are smart meters about more accurate billing?
Or about offering the chance to use electricity at times of cheaper tariffs?
Or about offering supply companies the chance to charge more at peak times?
Or about managing electricity usage to prevent peaking?
Or about managing electricity generation to prevent peaking?
Or about persuading us to use less electricity overall for environmental reasons?

The 'sell' by the government has been poor, to the general public at least. Then again the 'sell' of green deal / insulation measures etc. was pretty poor. Vague non-specific cash savings without much technical back up, just high pressure telephone sales techniques and who would possibly refuse something 'free'.

I'm not sure you can simply lump recycling refuseniks into the climate denial changer camp. Again the government failed to show any kind of leadership leaving it up to individual local authorities who came up with an alarming variety of schemes, perhaps depending upon whether they had already locked themselves into restrictive and long term incineration contracts. I'd love to recycle responsibly but don't have space for that many boxes, bags, bins, sacks, varying days and weeks of collection at varying times of the year. Plus, as a pedestrian, I am banned from the household waste recycling centre anyway so a 'wheelie bin sandwich' it has to be for my forbidden items.

I'm no apologist for the Government, (especially this lot) and would agree wholeheartedly that so far, both the smart meter programme and Green Deal have been handled atrociously. They desperately need to get the message across as the lack of consumer interest will just increase the hardship encountered when the energy crunch comes.
The probelm seems to be that any drives to meet our green obligations are seen by the UK's Government(s) to be vote-losers.
In my view, there is only one objective with energy and that is to change the (collective) population's behaviour in such a way that the green objectives can be met by the whole country. This must be done in a way that is seen by the population as being fair and reasonable.
So an issue is that when any change is being forced on people, there will be a proportion of them that claim that it is 'unfair' that they should have to change offering reasons (they are too old, too poor, too ill, their lifestyle is different, it's undemocratic, other countries aren't doing it, etc.etc.). Readers should insert whichever is appropriate. It is far more unfair if a few are allowed to sidestep the changes which also undermines the whole aims of change.
The fact is that the objective must be achieved, so the Government's persuasion usually needs to utilise a number of tools, i.e.:

sell the benefits (less climate impact), - not done very well here so far
offer iinducements (better control over expenditure vs time of energy use)
financial penalty (those who carry on regardless will pay more)
various legislative 'back stops', mainly around wasting energy and avoidable pollution​

This current initiative isn't the first of course, - as I inferred, there are those who are trying to resist recycling, they will be reigned-in eventually by tighter restrictions on refuse disposal.

Over the decades, there have been many other changes that have needed to be scoop up those who think that it didn't (or needn't) apply to them, e.g. cleaner motor vehicles, smoking in public places, insecticides, smokeless zones. These are just thing loosely related to the environment, - there are probably many more that others could mention. It's just human nature for some to resist change, but ultimately we only survive as a society when we all work together.

 

[Feathers44]

I think that the original intention has always been more about tracking the use of power rather than anything else. With the current metering system, guesswork and historic trends is all that the utilities have to play with. The ability to know what's going on minute by minute will be a revolution in data tracking pretty much unrivalled in the industry.

The problem is that the information is pretty much useless to the consumer so they need to sell it on other aspects, hence the fancy displays etc. Personally, I know what I use and wouldn't use a smart display of any sort (other than for the initial fun factor) so I don't see the point from a personal perspective.

The longer term aspirations for variable rate electricity billing could take many forms but I don't think 'spot rate' price changes would be one of them. With out some sort of deterministic rules, the consumer won't have a hope of living cheaply unless they're lucky in the timings they choose for long time loads like cooking or washing machines. Some sort of spread pricing and prediction will surely still be needed if there's to be any sort of consumer attraction.

The other issue of the moment is that the meters aren't standardised so there's a chance that changing suppliers will mean changing meters. They really need to get that one sorted out before they roll these things out much further. The systems may be 'free' for the consumer but it all ends up on the bills of everyone in the end and we really don't need to be paying companies to be ripping out th 'wrong' sort of smart meter every few years.

 

[HSTEd]

Because they allow much more accurate metering and billing.

But they have yet to present any actual evidence that problems with accurate billing effect the grid in any meaningful way.

And the problems with billing are only significant because they cause problems in the absurd electricity system we have today.

 

[HSTEd]

I think that the original intention has always been more about tracking the use of power rather than anything else. With the current metering system, guesswork and historic trends is all that the utilities have to play with. The ability to know what's going on minute by minute will be a revolution in data tracking pretty much unrivalled in the industry.

Information that is only necessary because of the insanity of our electricity 'market'?
I don't see why it is necessary to know what every customer is using in real time with an integrated system.
All the information you need on real-time demand is provided by monitoring grid frequency - if frequency is below 50Hz, order more power generation, otherwise order less.

The longer term aspirations for variable rate electricity billing could take many forms but I don't think 'spot rate' price changes would be one of them. With out some sort of deterministic rules, the consumer won't have a hope of living cheaply unless they're lucky in the timings they choose for long time loads like cooking or washing machines. Some sort of spread pricing and prediction will surely still be needed if there's to be any sort of consumer attraction.

But consumer attraction is irrelevant.
They will just ratchet the cost of every other option so that people are forced onto the tarrif.

The other issue of the moment is that the meters aren't standardised so there's a chance that changing suppliers will mean changing meters. They really need to get that one sorted out before they roll these things out much further. The systems may be 'free' for the consumer but it all ends up on the bills of everyone in the end and we really don't need to be paying companies to be ripping out th 'wrong' sort of smart meter every few years.

But that sort of standardisation is completely at odds with the philosophy of the government [and all governments after 1979] which is to have competition and a market in all things at all times.

 

[najaB]

But they have yet to present any actual evidence that problems with accurate billing effect the grid in any meaningful way.

It stands to reason that accurate data will allow more useful analysis than rough guesses and estimation.

 

[HSTEd]

It stands to reason that accurate data will allow more useful analysis than rough guesses and estimation.

But what kind of data analysis are you doing where you need a 100% data set

Normally a randomly distributed sample of <10% with granular flow data from substations would be easily sufficient.
And far far cheaper to obtain.

 

[dm1]

But what kind of data analysis are you doing where you need a 100% data set

Normally a randomly distributed sample of <10% with granular flow data from substations would be easily sufficient.
And far far cheaper to obtain.

I've read that the idea is that demand can be tracked and predicted far more closely, and manipulated to significantly reduce its variation, perhaps requiring far less reserve capacity in future.

i.e. matching supply to demand has been done for a long time, but now there is the opportunity to match demand to supply - particularly important for renewables I imagine.

Equally inefficiencies such as firing up gas and coal power stations for short-lived bursts of high demand could become a thing of the past.

 

[HSTEd]

I've read that the idea is that demand can be tracked and predicted far more closely, and manipulated to significantly reduce its variation, perhaps requiring far less reserve capacity in future.

Eh, it doesn't improve our knowledge of peak demand, since we already know that since we know the inputs to the grid.

It might improve our ability to predict how demand will change by enabling the grid operator to monitor when certain classes of consumer are using specific amounts of power, but that is tending far too close to the Panopticon for my tastes.
And as I said, we can purchase an awful lot of reserve capacity with £11bn.
£800m apparently buys you a 600MWe pumped storage plant with 30GWh of storage. And apparently approval requests have been submitted for the plant's turbine hall to be expanded to support 1500MWe instead of 600MWe.

Equally inefficiencies such as firing up gas and coal power stations for short-lived bursts of high demand could become a thing of the past.

We have technologies that don't require firing up power stations for short-lived bursts. Dinorwig is an example, and there are many more sites available that could be like it if they are required.

0 to 1650MWe in 75 seconds, or 16 if its on a hot-alert.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I wonder if the smaller energy suppliers will have problems with the fitting of smart meters. I am with Good Energy who say late in 2018 is the current date for their entry into this matter.

 

[Feathers44]

I wonder if the smaller energy suppliers will have problems with the fitting of smart meters. I am with Good Energy who say late in 2018 is the current date for their entry into this matter.

If staff are really directly employed by the big boys for this then I suspect the small players will be forced into contracting them to do the job when their direct workload reduces. If it's all contracted out, the big boys probably get in first simply because they can pay more.

 

[najaB]

I wonder if the smaller energy suppliers will have problems with the fitting of smart meters. I am with Good Energy who say late in 2018 is the current date for their entry into this matter.

In a lot of cases the meters aren't owned by the energy supplier, so it would be the metering supplier who is responsible for fitting the meter.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In a lot of cases the meters aren't owned by the energy supplier, so it would be the metering supplier who is responsible for fitting the meter.

Lowri Beck, who provide meter reading services for Good Energy, now seem to be a very big player in the metering field, with many large energy suppliers now using their services.

 

[mbonwick]

Probably worth having a read of "The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future" to realise how badly going smart had ended up for America...

Granted its a different system over there etc, but you can see the pitfalls that the UK will also probably end up falling down.

 

[cjp]

I wonder if the smaller energy suppliers will have problems with the fitting of smart meters. I am with Good Energy who say late in 2018 is the current date for their entry into this matter.

My small supplier does not support smart meters but one of their conditions is the monthly online submission of a meter reading - they send a reminder in case I forget. It is worth doing this to save the money compared to NPower.

Having read the interesting submissions on here I will still say no to a smart meter for the reasons I originally stated - staying in control of my supply (as best I can).

 

[ainsworth74]

Of course the reality is that any meter fitted now will be a smart meter. It just may not have the smart functionality enabled if the customer declines to have it turned on.

 

[cjp]

Of course the reality is that any meter fitted now will be a smart meter. It just may not have the smart functionality enabled if the customer declines to have it turned on.

Is that for sure or just a (reasonable) speculation?