Economy 7 Meter Switchover

[DRD]

I am being relentlessly harassed to arrange for a new smart electricity meter to be installed.

The BBC Radio signal that operates the Eco 7 night time electricity is being switched off in a few months.

I don't even use economy 7. I have no economy 7 specific electrical circuits. I don't even have an economy 7 tariff.

Can I just ignore this ? Keep what I have in place and just accept that my Eco 7 days are over ?

I'm no fan of integrating everything, apps to control my house, smart meters, that sort of thing.

Thank you

 

[AlanJ]

Just move house. IOM is calling you.

 

[mark9]

Everyone who’s not on a smart meter is getting harassed.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

.

 

[DRD]

IOM is calling but Mrs DRD won't commit without spending a yr there first !!

We were in an IOM airbnb last week and a meter reader came. Old school.

 

[Arv]

I'm just ignoring it tbh. I imagine they will suddenly decide to extend it.

 

[mark9]

I am on economy 7 and was being told that my meter would stop working in june, so I had a smart meter fitted last week.

When I questioned the engineer about this he said they weren’t switching mine off they just say that because they don’t know what type of meter you have.

He gave me the chance to cancel but I went ahead with the electric anyway and cancelled the gas meter swap (as that meant chopping up the cupboard).

I’m still on economy 7 with the new meter but apparently that is ending in 2030.

 

[DRD]

It may not be the same, but ....

I remember years ago when they were pushing water meters. My dad got one as he thought it would lower his bills, as many did.

My house has a water meter. It was replaced by a smart meter without my consent as it is under the pavement. My neighbour still has no water meter at all.

The UK population growth and total absence of capacity increase in reservoirs, reliable power generation, gas storage etc means that rationing/ variable pricing is on the cards.

There are already regular hosepipe bans (despite rain!!!), we import power from Europe, we import lpg from Qatar on ships.

These smart meters will allow rationing to mitigate availability squeezes driven by population growth and net zero measures. I think old timers on dumb meters will be better off

 

[Jagspete]

Had an acquaintance used to do odd jobs with me, his main job was disconnections for one of the electrical suppliers. As he points out the smart meter works 2 ways, so they can stop supply remotely, I think they're incentivesed by some government edict where they have to fit a certain amount of them. We had one fitted as our old one was over clocking by about 20% , which was never admitted, even after our bills dropped. It's made the difference for our bills in that I got rid of an old commercial chest freezer and ancient dehumidifier that were costing a lot to run, as you can turn stuff off and see the cost per hour drop. The missus was disappointed that the pinballs weren't causing us high bills,- think it was about 1.5 p an hour!

 

[Arv]

Unfortunately there is nothing smart about these meters.
It's purely Simple Monitoring And Report Tool.
If you want to get one get one, if you don't don't. But as DRD rightly forewarns you these will be used for load shedding in the coming years.

 

[mark9]

Think it will save me money in the long term.

Being able to monitor which appliances are the worst guzzlers is pretty handy.

And with solar panels I’ll be able to see how much electric is going back to the grid and get optimal use of that by putting dishwasher and washing machine on at peak sunlight times rather than overnight.

Nothing new really as I could figure these things out without a smart meter, by the speed of the flashing led on the old meter, but it’s just easier now doing it through my phone.

No separate display though, Octopus seem to have stopped giving them out. Just a little pink gadget that annoyingly needs usb power if you want to monitor electric usage, using the octopus app.

 

[Fantazia2]

 

[Mfresh]

Ok, a contrary view:

Smart meters are brilliant. With a smart meter you have access to far more flexible and competitive tariffs.

I was on Octopus for about 25p per unit. Switched to a smart EV tariff with a peak rate of 24p and an off peak rate of just 6.7p. The off peak period is currently 7 hours, and is controlled by the meter. Buy in the future I may switch to a tarrif with a shorter off peak period (as I don’t need 7 hours to charge an electric Fiat 500) and a lower peak price - the smart meter will handle it.

A dumb meter is restricted to that 7 hour economy 7 period (or eco 10 if that still exists) and I have yet to find an economy 7 tariff which is anything like as competitive as the tariff for smart meters. Most have a peak price of about 32p and off peak of 13p or so.

As for load shedding, you don’t need smart meters to cut people off as anyone in South Africa or anyone who remembers the early ‘70s can testify!