On 28/10/10 12:55, Mike Barnes wrote:
:
On 28/10/2010 09:47, Mike Barnes wrote:
Currently I read the electricity and gas meters at the end of each
month, fill in an online form, and pay for the actual usage near the
middle of the following month. I'm very happy with this arrangement.

My supplier (First Utility) has offered me free "smart meters".

http://www.first-utility.com/home-en...t-smart-meters

A smart meter takes automatic readings of your energy usage
It sends the readings via a mobile communications link to First Utility
We make your energy usage data available to view online
You receive an accurate, monthly energy bill

Experience tells me that if something is free there must be a downside,
but I can't see it. Is there one? Is this a consumer-subsidised scheme
like those "free" CFLs?


What if you subsequently want to change suppliers?

When no other suppliers are yet using smart meters they may have you by
the 'nads?

The FAQ says that the meter has a normal display that you can read
yourself if you like. Therefore other suppliers could presumably read it
if required.

Maybe there is a contractual lock-in.

That's more likely - that in order to make it worthwhile for them
they'll want a commitment not to switch for a year or so.


We had these installed by E-on a couple of years ago. They worked fine,
there's no catch and the reason the companies do it is because they don't
have to pay a meter reading company to come round and read your meters, but
they still get accurate readings unlike with some of the self-read tariffs
around. Basically it's cheaper for them.

There is no lock-in, if you move to another supplier that doesn't use the
smart meters then the digits are read from the screen in the normal way.

The interesting one was the gas meter. Of course there is no power supply to
a gas meter so I wondered if they just swap out batteries or they rely on a
turbine blade in the gas flow to keep a rechargeable topped up.

The gas meter doesn't actually transmit directly back to the company, it
transmits locally to the electricity meter (the two have to be paired) and
then the electricity meter has a SIM card in it and transmits both readings
back to the company over GPRS.