Another Smart Meter thread.

Hi Robin,

When we had our "not so smart" meter fitted first. It was sited in the Larder, a) to be out of the way visually and b) it was the only available plug.

The Larder is about 3 m from the main fuse box / meter, and 1 m from the outside gas meter, but of course there is a cavity wall in the way.

This set-up would work, but very intermittently. One such period of non operation involved switching the mains off and re-booting.

The smart meter is now sited less than 1 m from the main fuse box but 3 m, plus wall from the gas meter. Even here it has not been without problems. The last time it was going to need a new meter fitting. However the threat of having it all taken out and going back to the old system seems to have sorted it out.

The meter never displays the correct tariff and is thus always priced higher than our actual consumption.

Don't you just love progress, the old meter had given 50 years of trouble free service.

Regards

Gray,

Dave W

This link to Ofgem may help with your querry.

**LINK**

Emgee

Noel, one of the gas suppliers has just been told off by the ombudsman for incorrectly telling customers that the old meter had become unsafe.

Martin C

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-11152613/Fury-Eon-tells-customers-meters-unsafe.html

Edited By Martin Connelly on 01/09/2022 13:02:40

The old electro mechanical meters must at the very least need a calibration check at some regular interval. Considering my completely solid state Fluke multimeter was called in for an annual calibration check I would be rather suspect of an old style domestic meter, of course if it was reading in your favour then well worth hanging on to.

Mike

Emgee

I have seen the OFFGEM Website but the price they currently quote which is 28p per KWh, which is some 6 p lower than the rate that I pay, and is quantified by a statement in small print underneath which states that the price may vary by region and method of paying. I pay by the most cost effective method which is by monthly direct debit, quoted as the cheapest method by suppliers, my complaint about the price cap and the way it is administered is that it is far from transparent if there are regional variations, surely if the price is capped then it should be a standard price per KWh throughout the country. The energy under the shambolic system that we have is purchased in accordance with prices on the international markets so easy to set a standard price for all UK consumers. Regional variations in pricing have always been catered for by the daily standing charge which is set by the energy companies depending on how costly the infrastructure is to bring the energy to the customer, the standing charge is always listed as a separate charge unconnected to the price per KWh. I feel that in the circumstances that prevail of now, with energy costs on an upward spiral then the Regulator and the energy companies need to quote a standard cap for unit prices, if they are unwilling to do this then they need to be totally transparent with prices, at the moment I feel that we the customers are being taken for a very expensive ride by not only the energy companies but also the regulator who just makes woolly statements such as an average family can expect to pay X pounds per annum, these are dire times, we need clear information from those that are supposedly managing this debacle. I will throw into the mix again a comment I made previously in this thread, Energy consumers in France have had the next rise in costs pegged at 4%, why are we being ripped off. Okay rant over. Dave W

Dave W

I agree with every word of your post but you haven't mentioned that below the the av price cap chart Ofgem state they always monitor what companys are charging to ensure the price is within the capped fugure, seems they give Shell Energy a wide berth when making any checks.

Emgee

Emgee

Many thanks for your response, it makes you wonder if the Regulator is carrying out his duties with due diligence if there are anomalies with pricing such as with my provider and that of Robin. Without total transparency we will never know the extent of the variations that obviously exist within the UK for a supposedly capped price for KWh of electricity. Dave W

I will throw into the mix again a comment I made previously in this thread, Energy consumers in France have had the next rise in costs pegged at 4%

And EDF are suing the French govenrment for billions to cover their extra costs incurred by having to sell at a price below the production cost. More here and doubtless elsewhere.

Nigel B.

Nigel

EDF supply about 70 % of Frances electricity from Nuclear power stations, the question I can’t understand is the cost of electricity on the world markets has increased dramatically because of the huge rise in gas prices, gas is now a major element of fossil fuel energy, EDF produces electricity from Nuclear how is the price of a unit of electricity produced from Nuclear affected by the world price of electricity produced using gas. The price of production from Nuclear should remain at a constant or near enough because it is unaffected by the rise in gas prices, EDF are whingeing that they are losing billions because the government has pegged the industry prices that can be charged, perhaps this and other circumstances surrounding EDFs operations is indicative of how poorly run the company is, and they are the company that will be providing the bulk of power from Nuclear in the UK, makes you think doesn’t it. Dave W

Have you read Ofgen's explanation of the Price Cap Dave? I'm afraid they're not set up as many seem to expect! For example, my bold:

The caps deliver fair energy prices by ensuring these tariffs reflect the underlying costs to supply energy, and
no more.

Who’s protected?
Not everybody. Around 11 million customers are covered by the Default Tariff Price Cap, and 4 million customers by the Prepayment Meter Price Cap. The caps don’t apply to people on fixed-term deals, as these are more likely to be good value.

Ofgen were created to stop RETAILERS from making excessive profits from consumers. Unfortunately Ofgen have no control over WHOLESALE prices. Their remit is based on the assumption that wholesale energy supply and demand would remain balanced for the foreseeable future and it appears that the politicians put no thought into what would happen if demand exceeded supply for any length of time. This is exactly what's happened: WHOLESALE prices, which are international, have skyrocketed.

The first effect of Ofgen's faulty remit was to bankrupt over thirty UK energy retail suppliers because it cost more to buy energy wholesale than retailers were allowed sell it. Consumers were happy with artificially low bills until their retailer failed and they were transferred to a new supplier who required them to pay the current market rate. Ouch.

Now the price cap mechanism isn't protecting consumers and that hurts even more!

During the interregnum it's not surprising the government haven't said or done anything useful yet. No doubt the civil servants and think-tanks have been busy, but I fear the options are limited and/or will cost the taxpayer dearly. Be interesting to see what announcements are made next week when the new PM takes charge. Cancelling Green Subsidies is a possibility that would delight fossil-fuel fan-boys, but it's too simple. The money barely makes a dent in what people are being asked to pay, the relief is temporary, and it discourages production of energy at home. The problem is more difficult than that: I'm expecting energy prices to stay high at least until next summer.

Dave

SOD, Like you I cannot see that we can do anything about the WHOLESALE price of gas, hopefully it's a massive wake up call to all the twats in government, both present & future! There is no real answer, subsidies will just allow prices to stay high?

Tony

Dave

My gripe is about paying 34p per unit when the published cap is 28p per unit, also Robin is paying over the odds, I am on a default tariff as my supplier only has default tariff and paying by monthly direct debit, the cheapest form of payment, they are not gambling with fixed price contracts until the market returns to some normality. Why is Shell Energy my supplier charging me 6p per unit more than the supposed published capped price as stated in Offgem documents.The vague statement in small print that regional differences exist should have no effect on the capped unit prices, regional variations have always been addressed by the daily standing charge which differs with suppliers all over the country. Their appears to be an inequality in the way that the price cap is applied if different energy companies can exceed the stated capped price. Dave W

Thanks for further comments.

Gray - your experiences add more weight to the case for not going with a smart meter, at least at the moment.

Dave W - in my case, I have discovered that my supplier (Good Energy) along with two others (Ecotricity and Green Energy UK) were granted permanent exemptions from the price cap in 2020. This was because they persuaded Ofgem that "By consumers being on the tariff, support is given to generation and production of renewable energy to an extent that is materially greater than that which is brought about as result of subsidies, obligations or other mandatory mechanisms". In your case it might be that Economy 7 isn't deemed a 'Standard Variable Tariff', or that the cap is being applied to a weighted average of peak and off-peak rates - (7*18 + 17*34) ÷ 24 = ~29.

Regional variations in unit rates are tabulated here (Money Saving Expert) but don't amount to much: for electricity they vary from 27.13p (Yorkshire) to 29.39p (London) /kWh.

Robin.

Shell are my supplier. Unit costs are 32.3p during the day and around 17p for E7. Gas is currently7.28p/ kWh. Standing charges are currently 44.84p (electric) and 27.22p (gas). These were hiked by about 80-90% at the last increases.

What has pee’d me off is that they are suddenly saying I need to provide monthly readings (as the smart meter is no longer providing them with data) which will clearly not reflect their up-coming price rises. They did this for a month, or more, at the last price hike. I suspect they are simply choosing not to pay the intermediate for that service.

Robin

Your comment about Economy7 may explain the price anomaly, I had wondered in the back of my mind whether it was something like that. It may also be that Shell Energy have been granted an exemption from the price cap because they state that all their energy is from sustainable sources, hard to believe that all the energy they sell to domestic customers is from sustainable sources, similar comments are made by other major suppliers, when you analyse where the energy is sourced there isn’t enough sustainable energy created to fulfill the amount of customers supposedly receiving it, another dubious marketing ploy! Dave W

How much energy does EDF supply here? and why wasn't ours capped at 4%?

Regards Ian.

Because it is French owned and they don't like us.

John

Since ofgem and a few other organisations must collect all the data for all suppliers and their regional variations is there anywhere that produces an interactive map like a weather radar plot to show the data?

After the gas engineer fitted a smart meter (outside) he then asked to see the electricity meter (in garage) to fit an interface not mentioned before. Then he decided for some reason he wasn't able to fit his electrical gizmo and had to undo his changes to the gas. He hasn't been back since about 3 years ago. So make sure your fitter explains what he is doing and checks it all out first.

Ian, in reply to your first question about 20% of UK energy (source We Own It ). In reply to your second, I have no idea. Well I do have some ideas actually, but they would take this thread into the realm of politics, which wouldn't be appropriate for this forum.

Dave W, your question about Shell's claim that all the energy they is from sustainable sources is interesting. I had been looking at this myself to try and understand where the premium I pay to Good Energy actually goes.

It seems that when energy providers generate 'carbon neutral' energy they also generate Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), one per MWh. RECs are traded (effectively globally) - they have their own market. It is thus possible for a company to represent themselves as 100% carbon neutral by buying the requisite RECs. This muddies the waters - not least because (according to one source) "the market in RECs is not entirely transparent".

A criticism of the REC system is that it doesn't drive 'additonality' because a great many RECs are generated by legacy generators - for example nuclear stations built decades ago generate RECs. The claim made by the three cap-exempt companies is that they use the premium to drive additionality directly. So they might contract to buy directly from a start-up windfarm for example, thus making the project viable when it might otherwise not have been.

Probably more than you wanted to know, I'm getting interested in all this now though!

Robin.