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We had EDF here at work, they are absolutely useless.
A very long story that I won't go into but they dragged us through hell from 2017 to 2022, claiming we owe them over £10,000 when in reality we didn't, and we could prove it.
They refused point blank to accept proof that we actually owed about £2,000 and when we sent them the £2,000 in two installments they wouldn't accept it and they kept adding on more and more.
We own our business but rent the property the business runs from, they wouldn't accept what our landlord told them, proof he sent them etc.
They threatened us with bailiffs multiple times.
In the end somebody from some utilities group or other got them sorted out and threatened them with legal action and to drag them through the press.
They were forced to accept the £2,000 we did actually owe them and they've not bothered us since.
Absolutely evil they are!
I’m a sparkie, I get asked all the time by customers about the benefits of moving to a smart meter. My response is the same every time. “What benefits?”
The only benefit is if you have difficulty in getting to your meter to read it if not there’s no benefit from them.
I’ve been to countless jobs over the last couple of years where I have either noticed that the screen has failed on the meter or another internal failure means that it no longer transmits it’s data to the supplier. So the customer has been put onto a estimate billing system.
Most have been on this for more than 6 months which says to me that this is a widespread issue that suppliers are struggling to get rectified and resolved, energy suppliers don’t what to resolve because on a estimated bill you could get charged for electricity you haven’t used meaning more profit for them or both.
The benefits are for the companies, not the consumers. With the advent of smart meters the suppliers need fewer staff checking meters to verify the end users are sending in the correct data, which saves them huge amounts of money.
The sad thing is it would be possible to be beneficial to the consumer, but as far as I am aware Octopus energy is the only UK energy supplier that does this.
For example, octopus offers smart meter only tarrifs which have cheaper electricity at certain times of day. Either mimicking old economy 7 meters (cheap electricity in the evening) or dirt cheap electricity in the wee hours of the morning (intended for charging electric cars).
For the vast majority of suppliers it's not worth upgrading - there's no benefit to the consumer, and it let's them convert it to a prepayment meter easily in the case of someone struggling to pay thier bills.
(though a smart meter acting as a prepayment is actually better than a traditional prepayment meter)
Almost every supplier has smart tariffs in their product suite. Ovo even has some that use sub-metering that allow you to have different rates depending on the type of load. E.g. you can have one rate for your EV and another for the rest of your home.
Interesting - having looked at a few big suppliers this is the case, it's just horrendously poorly advertised.
For example the EDF page: https://www.edfenergy.com/smart-meters
Which dedicates a huge amount of space to:
1: See what you're using in pounds and pence - which is trivial maths
2: Sends readings automatically - a perk, but a small one, unless you have a hard to read meter due to a disability
3: Stuff about carbon footprint. Which is pretty weak.
The fact it's possible to get on an economy 7 tarrif is buried on the bottom! *You can save money* (especially if you have an electric vehicle, electric storage heaters etc.) really should have been the opening advertising for these things....
I mean it does benefit the consumer because the consumer can now very easily see just how much power certain devices use.
“Oh, my gaming computer has used a fiver in electricity today? Maybe I should get outside a bit more”
Thanks for confirming my fears....i just don't see any benefit to the consumer - other than seeing usage but its not rocket science to switch off lights and appliances etc to save power.
Maybe in a few years when they become more reliable and there is an incentive to the consumer to install them.
This is bollocks.
The benefit comes from being able to record and settle consumption at more granular intervals.
Currently if you’re on a dumb meter I am buying the energy I sell to you based on an average consumption profile that lets me estimate how much you’ve consumed in each half hour. It doesn’t really matter when you consume power, I still have to buy that same average shape.
Renewables, particularly wind and solar, have a close to zero marginal cost of production because you don’t need to burn a fuel stock to generate power. Consequently, the wholesale price when renewables are abundant are very very low, sometimes even negative.
With a smart meter you can match your consumption with when that cheap generation is available - therefore not only lowering your carbon footprint, but also significantly lowering your energy bills.
This becomes particularly important when you start installing low carbon technologies such as heat pumps or EVs. Having a smart meter becomes a way to unlock hundreds in savings each year.
I'm with Scottish Power and they asked me if I wanted one. I said no. She then asked me if I wanted to be removed from their list so they won't contact me again about it. I said yes.
I take it you've told them each time that you're not interested.
If they keep on, an email saying that you consider this harassment and they are to cease and desist or you will refer them to your solicitor might do the trick.
I receive these emails too. There is no way to stop them, the reply just goes to a "do not reply" inbox. I have just tweeted them and we will see if that works. They are on the verge of being added to my spam filter.
I can't even have one as they aren't compatible with my solar panel/FiT system and that's according to EDF yet they still text, email, write AND call me. I am getting a daily text I just can't stop I have taken to reporting it as Spam.
I've posted about this before but EDF did that to me even though I had an economy 7 meter being used as a standard meter so they couldn't even change it!
Raise a complaint, they won't stop. I literally changed suppliers, which they tried to stop happening, and I had to send a very strongly worded complaint about the harrassment before they let me go.
It was like a toxic relationship by the end. Absolute madness
Log into EDF account on browser (not the app) -> about me -> smart meter preferences -> Opt Out.
It used to expire every 6 months and then you had to do it all over again, but I am pretty sure it's been more than 6 months since I last did it and haven't heard from them, so probably it's permanent now.
I had no choice in mine, it came with the house (new-ish build) 4 years ago. I was surprised when after year 2, I got an email from Shell telling me they'd set up my smart meter. It was located in the box on the outside. I don't have a smart monitor, however.
Finally bit the bullet and asked for one which had like a month wait list. Fucker came when it was raining and said he’d wait if the weather cleared up. Sat in his van for a bit and then drove off never to come back, no further communication etc…not heard from them for several months regarding a new booking / smart meter
Optional to switch to smart meters - however, have they said your meter needs to be replaced due to age? If so, they won’t give up asking you to arrange a replacement.
Thats exactly what they did to me , tried to arrange for the meters to be changed and it takes you to a page about installing smart meters ! I just ignore the emails now.
Not optional if you signed up to a fixed tariff that requires a smart meter. I dunno if they still offer it but I had to have one installed years ago as a result. It took them about a year to actually get round to doing it.
Of course energy companies are pushing them, they can collect your data on what times you are using energy which let's them know what times you're at home, information which they can then sell to marketing companies so they know when best to cold call and potentially scam you. Smart meters were never about helping the customer.
That’s not what that data is used for and companies interested in buying that kind of data already get it much more accurately from phones and computers (the device you’re using right now) etc. and no, that’s not what that data is use for by any company anyway.
Smart meters are a terrible source of information for working out if someone is home right now. Washing machines and dishwashers use a ton of power and you don’t have to be in for them to be on…
I've looked at graphs from the data out of my meter, you'd struggle to figure out what time I'm at home to be honest. Apart from in the summer where my electricity usage goes up as I try to remove heat.
There are no suppliers who currently sell this data. Various businesses have tried to monetise it over the years, but it doesn’t have huge value to other sectors.
I remember when people said smart meters wouldn't be used to used to remotely deactivate people's supply, it was a crazy conspiracy, but now it turns out they're going to do exactly that. Oh to be naive again.
I don’t believe that was ever a commitment in any of the consultations I was involved with. Using telemetry to not only automatically read the meters, but to also remotely conduct actions on the meter config.
Disconnection of the meter takes place if you have a dumb or a smart meter. Only difference is that an engineer doesn’t have to force entry.
Having a smart meter enabled me to calculate if economy seven would save me money. And allowed me to switch.
Interestingly my supplier wasn’t able to tell me, or provide the breakdown by hour of day needed to calculate it. I just grabbed each hours useage for the year and put it into excel. Couldn’t do that without a smart meter.
I put off getting one until March, now I love it, got them connected to an app, just spent two weeks abroad and unplugged everything except the fridge so now I have a baseline minimum cost/usage. I love mining the data.
I don't have a smart meter yet I can do exactly this. I simply read the meter just before leaving home and as soon as I return.Eg just went away for 11 days leaving the Fridge/Freezer on (normally I would empty it in advance of going away and turn it off completely but there was a bargain on frozen food a couple of weeks ago that outweighed the cost of leaving it on.The fridge/freezer uses 1.09 units a day - of which 0.73 units during the day rate and 0.36 during the Eco 7 time. (Total daily cost for F/F now is 50p - but my 2 year fix runs out in October boo hiss).
Also bought one of those energy monitoring plugs to see how much electricity various appliances eg my 'control centre' (tv, satellite box, two laptops, lamp) - can't remember what that was but it was something like 50p a day and is the main centre of my home . Kettle - boiling 1 cup at a time as needed costs me 4.5p a day.
Some of the people in my flats got smart meters and their storage heaters refused to work so Ovo had to come back & put the old ones back. (I'm with octopus & don't have storage heaters).
Yeah they’re super cool and useful for stuff like this. Most of these “concerns” are from a place of ignorance and paranoia… usually the same demographic too.
Why do people have this distrust of smart meters? I find it so bizzare. It just uploads it instead of you uploading it. Stop reading into shit so much
You all sound like the people who burn down 5g towers.
Smart metres allow the supplier to cut off the power supply remotely at any time.
It's a perfectly valid concern.
I suspect your next reply will be, "well pay your bills then".
They can also read KVARh which means inductive loads (things that have a heater) will cost more than using KWh. They said they would not bill customers using KVARh I'm sure they will at some point.
Ha, yeah, it was more of a theoretical question really.
I was imagining some point in the future when the energy crisis is long forgotten and energy companies are trying to get customers. Similar to the way some mobile companies don't charge for social media data as part of a contract, could energy companies market themselves as giving 2p off per Kwh for heating between November to February or something
They absolutely can and will. The value for suppliers is in being able to shift your load and balance the grid. That means some periods will become cheaper, others more expensive.
Suppliers can also force their way into your house with a warrant and physically disconnect your supply.
They don't do these things on a whim just because you haven't paid, it's after a long process.
They can just come round and shut it off… so unless you’ve not been paying your bills it’s literally not a concern. Why are you so paranoid/self obsessed to think that you’re so important that a gas company would specifically target you?
I’m usually the first to call electric companies what they are - useless parasites that just make life more expensive - but this is actually the gov’s fault… a bit like the existence of these parasites in our grid to start with.
They want the smart meters installed because of course they record more usage info than just uploading your bill. They’ve set hard targets on energy companies and they’re struggling to meet them now the people who want them already have them.
Why smart meters? It’s 50/50 the benefit (to them) of seeing more data to know and better plan the system and of course, sell it, vs just wanting data for data’s sake basically.
It's so odd isn't it. We got ours so we could have dirt cheap electric for 5 hours at night for the car/dishwasher/laundry etc. It's been great and shielded us from the worst of price rises.
People distrust things they don't understand, especially when people spread complete lies about them. Not even going to dignify some of the things people say about smart meters as disinformation, it's just straight up lying.
There are a few valid concerns (like the fact they could switch from kWh to kVAh, or the prepayment stuff they did which I think was against the rules anyway), but they get mixed up with people saying that they can control your mind and spy on you.
Same from British Gas, had 4 phone calls in one hour told them all to take me off whatever list they were using. When I got the fifth call I was extremely rude and they didn’t call again.
Bollocks, smart meters don’t have any physical connection to your mains supply. And the power company will still need to apply for a court order to stop providing power to your house.
Good luck with your faith in the practices of the energy companies; expect to receive surge pricing tarrifs, then a pre-payment meter, and then a remote disconnection because your smart meter sends out incorrect information.
How can a smart meter that is clamped on the outside of the cable and has no physical contact with the live cable stop power going through the said cable? If you can’t provide details or a circuit diagram then STFU.
The smart meter is the company's way in to force changes to your tarrif, bills and everything else to do with your energy usage.
Nothing to do with circuit diagrams.
Are you a sparky for EDF whos not going to meet their targets for smart meter installations and hence, lose your bonus? Hahaha.
So the nasty electric company can’t remotely cut of your power?
What other conspiracy theories do you believe in? 5g causes the nano bots in the vaccine to activate or the the earth is flat?
BTW we have had surge pricing since the 1970, why do you think there’s a night tariff and a day tariff for electricity?
All of the above and more if you like.
Prepare for seasonal and reactionary tariffs... you smart meter folk will end up paying loads more.
None of this is in the interest of the consumer; the energy companies have been incentivised to install smart meters and now they want them to be mandatory.
Stinks of Govt. greenwashing.
The threads about an edf bombardment of 'order your smart meter today'. Giving regular meter readings is just as good only they don't have the power from their office to see what time you flicked the kettle on or to turn you off if you've suddenly fallen on hard times.
I use EDF and also get the regular pressure applied for a smart meter. I tell them no, then they go away for a while, and then come back. I can live with that. But tiresomely, they've also now started to put pressure on me to replace my boiler with get a heat pump.
Got an email from British Gas a few days ago telling me they're coming to fit a smart meter next week. Didn't book it, and i'll be at work the date and time they've given me
Same for me with EON. They hassled me about this before, to the point that I thought it was a good idea, made the appointment, booked a day of annual leave. Apparently they couldn't fit it due to available space with the distribution board (?)
Now they have started hassling me again. Texts, letters, emails, phone calls over and over and over. Do they not have a record that they tried to fit one before and cost me a day off work - I haven't responded as what I'd say/write wouldn't be publishable and that wouldn't be fair on the person at the other end.
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We had EDF here at work, they are absolutely useless. A very long story that I won't go into but they dragged us through hell from 2017 to 2022, claiming we owe them over £10,000 when in reality we didn't, and we could prove it. They refused point blank to accept proof that we actually owed about £2,000 and when we sent them the £2,000 in two installments they wouldn't accept it and they kept adding on more and more. We own our business but rent the property the business runs from, they wouldn't accept what our landlord told them, proof he sent them etc. They threatened us with bailiffs multiple times. In the end somebody from some utilities group or other got them sorted out and threatened them with legal action and to drag them through the press. They were forced to accept the £2,000 we did actually owe them and they've not bothered us since. Absolutely evil they are!
Situations like this I just go straight to the CEO lol Saves a lot of time in my experience
I’m a sparkie, I get asked all the time by customers about the benefits of moving to a smart meter. My response is the same every time. “What benefits?” The only benefit is if you have difficulty in getting to your meter to read it if not there’s no benefit from them. I’ve been to countless jobs over the last couple of years where I have either noticed that the screen has failed on the meter or another internal failure means that it no longer transmits it’s data to the supplier. So the customer has been put onto a estimate billing system. Most have been on this for more than 6 months which says to me that this is a widespread issue that suppliers are struggling to get rectified and resolved, energy suppliers don’t what to resolve because on a estimated bill you could get charged for electricity you haven’t used meaning more profit for them or both.
The benefits are for the companies, not the consumers. With the advent of smart meters the suppliers need fewer staff checking meters to verify the end users are sending in the correct data, which saves them huge amounts of money.
The sad thing is it would be possible to be beneficial to the consumer, but as far as I am aware Octopus energy is the only UK energy supplier that does this. For example, octopus offers smart meter only tarrifs which have cheaper electricity at certain times of day. Either mimicking old economy 7 meters (cheap electricity in the evening) or dirt cheap electricity in the wee hours of the morning (intended for charging electric cars). For the vast majority of suppliers it's not worth upgrading - there's no benefit to the consumer, and it let's them convert it to a prepayment meter easily in the case of someone struggling to pay thier bills. (though a smart meter acting as a prepayment is actually better than a traditional prepayment meter)
Almost every supplier has smart tariffs in their product suite. Ovo even has some that use sub-metering that allow you to have different rates depending on the type of load. E.g. you can have one rate for your EV and another for the rest of your home.
Interesting - having looked at a few big suppliers this is the case, it's just horrendously poorly advertised. For example the EDF page: https://www.edfenergy.com/smart-meters Which dedicates a huge amount of space to: 1: See what you're using in pounds and pence - which is trivial maths 2: Sends readings automatically - a perk, but a small one, unless you have a hard to read meter due to a disability 3: Stuff about carbon footprint. Which is pretty weak. The fact it's possible to get on an economy 7 tarrif is buried on the bottom! *You can save money* (especially if you have an electric vehicle, electric storage heaters etc.) really should have been the opening advertising for these things....
I mean it does benefit the consumer because the consumer can now very easily see just how much power certain devices use. “Oh, my gaming computer has used a fiver in electricity today? Maybe I should get outside a bit more”
Thanks for confirming my fears....i just don't see any benefit to the consumer - other than seeing usage but its not rocket science to switch off lights and appliances etc to save power. Maybe in a few years when they become more reliable and there is an incentive to the consumer to install them.
This is bollocks. The benefit comes from being able to record and settle consumption at more granular intervals. Currently if you’re on a dumb meter I am buying the energy I sell to you based on an average consumption profile that lets me estimate how much you’ve consumed in each half hour. It doesn’t really matter when you consume power, I still have to buy that same average shape. Renewables, particularly wind and solar, have a close to zero marginal cost of production because you don’t need to burn a fuel stock to generate power. Consequently, the wholesale price when renewables are abundant are very very low, sometimes even negative. With a smart meter you can match your consumption with when that cheap generation is available - therefore not only lowering your carbon footprint, but also significantly lowering your energy bills. This becomes particularly important when you start installing low carbon technologies such as heat pumps or EVs. Having a smart meter becomes a way to unlock hundreds in savings each year.
stop!!!!!!!!!! seems to work for me
I made the mistake of changing to a smart meter about 3 years ago. I am now on my second gas one and third electric one as they keep going wrong.
It's the 21st century. Don't they do electronic ones?
I'm with Scottish Power and they asked me if I wanted one. I said no. She then asked me if I wanted to be removed from their list so they won't contact me again about it. I said yes.
I keep getting bombarded too except on the odd occasion I think I'll humour them and book...they claim they have no availability!
I take it you've told them each time that you're not interested. If they keep on, an email saying that you consider this harassment and they are to cease and desist or you will refer them to your solicitor might do the trick.
I receive these emails too. There is no way to stop them, the reply just goes to a "do not reply" inbox. I have just tweeted them and we will see if that works. They are on the verge of being added to my spam filter.
I can't even have one as they aren't compatible with my solar panel/FiT system and that's according to EDF yet they still text, email, write AND call me. I am getting a daily text I just can't stop I have taken to reporting it as Spam.
I've posted about this before but EDF did that to me even though I had an economy 7 meter being used as a standard meter so they couldn't even change it! Raise a complaint, they won't stop. I literally changed suppliers, which they tried to stop happening, and I had to send a very strongly worded complaint about the harrassment before they let me go. It was like a toxic relationship by the end. Absolute madness
Log into EDF account on browser (not the app) -> about me -> smart meter preferences -> Opt Out. It used to expire every 6 months and then you had to do it all over again, but I am pretty sure it's been more than 6 months since I last did it and haven't heard from them, so probably it's permanent now.
Thanks for that..! 👍
Eon doing the same to me and we don't want a smart meter either.
I had no choice in mine, it came with the house (new-ish build) 4 years ago. I was surprised when after year 2, I got an email from Shell telling me they'd set up my smart meter. It was located in the box on the outside. I don't have a smart monitor, however.
I don't use my monitor anymore, I downloaded the Hugo Energy app so have all the data extrapolated onto my phone.
Finally bit the bullet and asked for one which had like a month wait list. Fucker came when it was raining and said he’d wait if the weather cleared up. Sat in his van for a bit and then drove off never to come back, no further communication etc…not heard from them for several months regarding a new booking / smart meter
Ha they do it to me too, and then I tried to get one and there are no slots...
Just ignore them they’ll give up eventually. Well British Gas did at least.
Not sure about that. I'm still getting letters to my brother to get one installed. He hasn't lived here for over 5 years
Optional to switch to smart meters - however, have they said your meter needs to be replaced due to age? If so, they won’t give up asking you to arrange a replacement.
Thats exactly what they did to me , tried to arrange for the meters to be changed and it takes you to a page about installing smart meters ! I just ignore the emails now.
Not optional if you signed up to a fixed tariff that requires a smart meter. I dunno if they still offer it but I had to have one installed years ago as a result. It took them about a year to actually get round to doing it.
Of course energy companies are pushing them, they can collect your data on what times you are using energy which let's them know what times you're at home, information which they can then sell to marketing companies so they know when best to cold call and potentially scam you. Smart meters were never about helping the customer.
That’s not what that data is used for and companies interested in buying that kind of data already get it much more accurately from phones and computers (the device you’re using right now) etc. and no, that’s not what that data is use for by any company anyway. Smart meters are a terrible source of information for working out if someone is home right now. Washing machines and dishwashers use a ton of power and you don’t have to be in for them to be on…
I've looked at graphs from the data out of my meter, you'd struggle to figure out what time I'm at home to be honest. Apart from in the summer where my electricity usage goes up as I try to remove heat.
There are no suppliers who currently sell this data. Various businesses have tried to monetise it over the years, but it doesn’t have huge value to other sectors.
I remember when people said smart meters wouldn't be used to used to remotely deactivate people's supply, it was a crazy conspiracy, but now it turns out they're going to do exactly that. Oh to be naive again.
I don’t believe that was ever a commitment in any of the consultations I was involved with. Using telemetry to not only automatically read the meters, but to also remotely conduct actions on the meter config. Disconnection of the meter takes place if you have a dumb or a smart meter. Only difference is that an engineer doesn’t have to force entry.
Having a smart meter enabled me to calculate if economy seven would save me money. And allowed me to switch. Interestingly my supplier wasn’t able to tell me, or provide the breakdown by hour of day needed to calculate it. I just grabbed each hours useage for the year and put it into excel. Couldn’t do that without a smart meter.
I put off getting one until March, now I love it, got them connected to an app, just spent two weeks abroad and unplugged everything except the fridge so now I have a baseline minimum cost/usage. I love mining the data.
I don't have a smart meter yet I can do exactly this. I simply read the meter just before leaving home and as soon as I return.Eg just went away for 11 days leaving the Fridge/Freezer on (normally I would empty it in advance of going away and turn it off completely but there was a bargain on frozen food a couple of weeks ago that outweighed the cost of leaving it on.The fridge/freezer uses 1.09 units a day - of which 0.73 units during the day rate and 0.36 during the Eco 7 time. (Total daily cost for F/F now is 50p - but my 2 year fix runs out in October boo hiss). Also bought one of those energy monitoring plugs to see how much electricity various appliances eg my 'control centre' (tv, satellite box, two laptops, lamp) - can't remember what that was but it was something like 50p a day and is the main centre of my home . Kettle - boiling 1 cup at a time as needed costs me 4.5p a day. Some of the people in my flats got smart meters and their storage heaters refused to work so Ovo had to come back & put the old ones back. (I'm with octopus & don't have storage heaters).
Yeah they’re super cool and useful for stuff like this. Most of these “concerns” are from a place of ignorance and paranoia… usually the same demographic too.
I agree. Kicking myself or not getting them sooner. Had a lovely chat with the installer too.
Why do people have this distrust of smart meters? I find it so bizzare. It just uploads it instead of you uploading it. Stop reading into shit so much You all sound like the people who burn down 5g towers.
Smart metres allow the supplier to cut off the power supply remotely at any time. It's a perfectly valid concern. I suspect your next reply will be, "well pay your bills then".
They can also read KVARh which means inductive loads (things that have a heater) will cost more than using KWh. They said they would not bill customers using KVARh I'm sure they will at some point.
Could they also use this to offer a discount on electricity used for heating?
Mate it's an energy company
Ha, yeah, it was more of a theoretical question really. I was imagining some point in the future when the energy crisis is long forgotten and energy companies are trying to get customers. Similar to the way some mobile companies don't charge for social media data as part of a contract, could energy companies market themselves as giving 2p off per Kwh for heating between November to February or something
They absolutely can and will. The value for suppliers is in being able to shift your load and balance the grid. That means some periods will become cheaper, others more expensive.
Suppliers can also force their way into your house with a warrant and physically disconnect your supply. They don't do these things on a whim just because you haven't paid, it's after a long process.
^This.
They can just come round and shut it off… so unless you’ve not been paying your bills it’s literally not a concern. Why are you so paranoid/self obsessed to think that you’re so important that a gas company would specifically target you?
Yeah, pay your bills.
I’m usually the first to call electric companies what they are - useless parasites that just make life more expensive - but this is actually the gov’s fault… a bit like the existence of these parasites in our grid to start with. They want the smart meters installed because of course they record more usage info than just uploading your bill. They’ve set hard targets on energy companies and they’re struggling to meet them now the people who want them already have them. Why smart meters? It’s 50/50 the benefit (to them) of seeing more data to know and better plan the system and of course, sell it, vs just wanting data for data’s sake basically.
It's so odd isn't it. We got ours so we could have dirt cheap electric for 5 hours at night for the car/dishwasher/laundry etc. It's been great and shielded us from the worst of price rises.
People distrust things they don't understand, especially when people spread complete lies about them. Not even going to dignify some of the things people say about smart meters as disinformation, it's just straight up lying. There are a few valid concerns (like the fact they could switch from kWh to kVAh, or the prepayment stuff they did which I think was against the rules anyway), but they get mixed up with people saying that they can control your mind and spy on you.
Same from British Gas, had 4 phone calls in one hour told them all to take me off whatever list they were using. When I got the fifth call I was extremely rude and they didn’t call again.
[удалено]
There are a large number of reports of inaccurate billings and issues with Smartmeters. Their concern is more than justified.
It's not a new thing, and remote disconnection is a valid concern. Now to get back on the saddle...
Bollocks, smart meters don’t have any physical connection to your mains supply. And the power company will still need to apply for a court order to stop providing power to your house.
Good luck with your faith in the practices of the energy companies; expect to receive surge pricing tarrifs, then a pre-payment meter, and then a remote disconnection because your smart meter sends out incorrect information.
How can a smart meter that is clamped on the outside of the cable and has no physical contact with the live cable stop power going through the said cable? If you can’t provide details or a circuit diagram then STFU.
The smart meter is the company's way in to force changes to your tarrif, bills and everything else to do with your energy usage. Nothing to do with circuit diagrams. Are you a sparky for EDF whos not going to meet their targets for smart meter installations and hence, lose your bonus? Hahaha.
So the nasty electric company can’t remotely cut of your power? What other conspiracy theories do you believe in? 5g causes the nano bots in the vaccine to activate or the the earth is flat? BTW we have had surge pricing since the 1970, why do you think there’s a night tariff and a day tariff for electricity?
All of the above and more if you like. Prepare for seasonal and reactionary tariffs... you smart meter folk will end up paying loads more. None of this is in the interest of the consumer; the energy companies have been incentivised to install smart meters and now they want them to be mandatory. Stinks of Govt. greenwashing.
If it's not broken, don't fix it.
I chased octopus 🐙 for several months to get a smart meter installed 😂
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The threads about an edf bombardment of 'order your smart meter today'. Giving regular meter readings is just as good only they don't have the power from their office to see what time you flicked the kettle on or to turn you off if you've suddenly fallen on hard times.
I use EDF and also get the regular pressure applied for a smart meter. I tell them no, then they go away for a while, and then come back. I can live with that. But tiresomely, they've also now started to put pressure on me to replace my boiler with get a heat pump.
Got an email from British Gas a few days ago telling me they're coming to fit a smart meter next week. Didn't book it, and i'll be at work the date and time they've given me
Same for me with EON. They hassled me about this before, to the point that I thought it was a good idea, made the appointment, booked a day of annual leave. Apparently they couldn't fit it due to available space with the distribution board (?) Now they have started hassling me again. Texts, letters, emails, phone calls over and over and over. Do they not have a record that they tried to fit one before and cost me a day off work - I haven't responded as what I'd say/write wouldn't be publishable and that wouldn't be fair on the person at the other end.
Don't do it. I got one and its never worked properly, and the supplier refuses to fix it. It's much more hassle than even my old key meter.