Energy bill increases

[mjr]

I get an email every month from Octopus advising me to provide my own readings for gas and electricity. Once done, they send me another email telling me how much I have used and the cost with a balance on my monthly payments.

Have you ever won a prize on that wheel of fortune, though?

I like it that way and have no intention of getting a smart meter.

Oh and no Smart Meter here either - they can bog off.

Why the hate? The early ones were shoot but the current ones look OK, at least if you're with a retailer like Octopus that gives you access to your own usage data.

We are having Solar panels installed tomorrow (but the battery doesn't come until next month), and are thinking of going onto the Octopus Agile tariff, which does charge and pay variable rates for import/export according to demand.

Check the numbers carefully before doing more than thinking. As I posted a few pages ago, Octopus Agile has been pinned at its maximum import price of 35p/kWh 0630-2230 most weekdays recently. It's only gone negative once in the last month and average unit price for my economy-7-style usage would have been 34.3p/kWh, considerably more than my current daytime rate.

 

[gavroche]

Have you ever won a prize on that wheel of fortune, though?

Not yet but working on it.

 

[vickster]

Not yet but working on it.

I won a whole pound this month

 

[PaulSB]

Smart meters
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1563061/Smart-meter-surge-pricing-Ofgem-ont

I would have read this if the Express didn't fill the bloody page with so many adverts I couldn't see half of the article.

I've had a smart meter since early August. It has not worked once, not one single day. A complete and utter waste of time and money. In December I put it in the box of spare cables and chargers I keep in the loft. Presumably it will live there for a few years till the next time I have a clear out.

Smart? My arse.

 

[mjr]

I've had a smart meter since early August. It has not worked once, not one single day. A complete and utter waste of time and money. In December I put it in the box of spare cables and chargers I keep in the loft. Presumably it will live there for a few years till the next time I have a clear out.

Smart? My arse.

Do you mean the meter or just the consumer display unit or whatever it's properly called?

 

[Alex321]

I would have read this if the Express didn't fill the bloody page with so many adverts I couldn't see half of the article.

I've had a smart meter since early August. It has not worked once, not one single day. A complete and utter waste of time and money. In December I put it in the box of spare cables and chargers I keep in the loft. Presumably it will live there for a few years till the next time I have a clear out.

Smart? My arse.

That isn't the smart meter. The smart meter lives in the box where the electricity/gas supply enters the house, and cannot just be "put in the box of spare cables".

What you are talking about is the unit which displays data from eth smart meter to you.

 

[PaulSB]

That isn't the smart meter. The smart meter lives in the box where the electricity/gas supply enters the house, and cannot just be "put in the box of spare cables".

What you are talking about is the unit which displays data from eth smart meter to you.

Yes,you're quite right. Still completely hopeless though. Not a single reading on the display, the energy supplier doesn't know my consumption and I have to supply the readings every month as I've always done.

Utterly pointless technology.

 

[PaulSB]

Do you mean the meter or just the consumer display unit or whatever it's properly called?

Yes, apologies the display unit is what I've chucked in a box in the loft. The meters work in the sense they show the consumption data but I still have to provide this to British Gas monthly. The meters themselves do nothing the previous ones couldn't. A pointless investment costing hundreds of millions which ultimately we have paid for despite them being "free."

 

[MrGrumpy]

Yes, apologies the display unit is what I've chucked in a box in the loft. The meters work in the sense they show the consumption data but I still have to provide this to British Gas monthly. The meters themselves do nothing the previous ones couldn't. A pointless investment costing hundreds of millions which ultimately we have paid for despite them being "free."

The small display units need to sit close to the smart meters. Mine disconnect from time to time. If I’m honest I never look at them. So I’m that respect yes , waste of money . However assuming they work fine , you should see usage date , cost etc in an app ? I do on mine ? It lags by 24hrs .

 

[Alex321]

The small display units need to sit close to the smart meters. Mine disconnect from time to time. If I’m honest I never look at them. So I’m that respect yes , waste of money . However assuming they work fine , you should see usage date , cost etc in an app ? I do on mine ? It lags by 24hrs .

I'd never even turned mine on until yesterday, although it has been in the house since we moved in (June 2020).

But I plugged it in and turned on yesterday, as we were having the solar panels installed. It connected just fine, even though the meter is nearly at the other end of the house, and it showed real time usage for both gas and electricity, and also showed totals for the day, week, month, year, and costs at the rate I am currently charged.

Once the solar was commissioned, it was showing the surplus with a different icon (and current cost as £0.00 ).

It gives us the chance to monitor over the next few weeks until the battery arrive before deciding which SEG to go for - though Octopus are looking likely.

 

[mjr]

Yes, apologies the display unit is what I've chucked in a box in the loft. The meters work in the sense they show the consumption data but I still have to provide this to British Gas monthly. The meters themselves do nothing the previous ones couldn't. A pointless investment costing hundreds of millions which ultimately we have paid for despite them being "free."

It should do stuff that the old one couldn't like report the numbers itself, do rates set at 15 minute intervals and so on, but it sounds like yours is broken. They should fix it.

 

[PaulSB]

The small display units need to sit close to the smart meters. Mine disconnect from time to time. If I’m honest I never look at them. So I’m that respect yes , waste of money . However assuming they work fine , you should see usage date , cost etc in an app ? I do on mine ? It lags by 24hrs .

My electric meter is indoors and the gas outside in a wall mounted white box. The meters are +/- 14 metres apart. The engineer placed the display unit 2.5 metres away from the electricity meter in a direct line meaning it's +/- 11 metres from the external gas meter. I presume he knew what he was doing.

After installation I was told to wait 24-48 hours for the display to start working as it need to be activated by the supplier. Nothing happened so after a couple of weeks I contacted the energy company and installers who asked me to press the reset button - there isn't one - and the usual, unplug, plug in etc. routine. None of this had an effect despite my trying repeatedly over several weeks. Eventually I put the display away having lost interest.

As I understand it the meters should communicate directly with the supplier using either a network known as WAN or the mobile phone network. The gas meter is battery powered for safety and communicates with the electric meter which sends both readings to the supplier. The electric meter communicates separately with the IHD display unit and is therefore, in my view, irrelevant to the communication between the meters and the energy company.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

A lot of the smart meters communicate with the supplier using part of the mobile phone network
If your signal is not too good then it can cause the meter to fail to communicate with the supplier - but they are well aware of this and should fix it
After all - we are paying them to get everyone onto the damn things!

 

[MrGrumpy]

My electric meter is indoors and the gas outside in a wall mounted white box. The meters are +/- 14 metres apart. The engineer placed the display unit 2.5 metres away from the electricity meter in a direct line meaning it's +/- 11 metres from the external gas meter. I presume he knew what he was doing.

After installation I was told to wait 24-48 hours for the display to start working as it need to be activated by the supplier. Nothing happened so after a couple of weeks I contacted the energy company and installers who asked me to press the reset button - there isn't one - and the usual, unplug, plug in etc. routine. None of this had an effect despite my trying repeatedly over several weeks. Eventually I put the display away having lost interest.

As I understand it the meters should communicate directly with the supplier using either a network known as WAN or the mobile phone network. The gas meter is battery powered for safety and communicates with the electric meter which sends both readings to the supplier. The electric meter communicates separately with the IHD display unit and is therefore, in my view, irrelevant to the communication between the meters and the energy company.

Indeed the small display unit , is a waste. Mine is in the utility room. I hardly look at it. What’s it’s maybe more useful for if it’s working and connected is for checking what’s uses most leccy ? It’s real time info. So you can go around switching stuff off etc.

 

[midlife]

Somewhere in the back of a drawer is a device to measure how much electricity you are using, by a company called Owl I think. You clipped something to the mains cable with a display in the house. Got bored with watching it so put it away about 15 years ago....