[RonS1]

It's a shame that the main two people contributing possible answers to my questions appear to not have smart meters and are sceptical of them. Thank you to them however for attempting answers.

I feel I'm pretty well informed on green energy sources/systems having run solar PV since 2011. I'm using solar and batteries in conjunction with an half hourly agile smart meter tariff and automation using Home Assistant with Predbat, to achieve an average daily cost of 9 to 10 p/kWh for my electricity import.
I am optimistic that these techniques will eventually help with driving smoother greener energy generation. However the energy supply companies need to get better with providing knowledgeable staff for support and education. I'm talking to you EON Next.

[retrotecchie]

@RonS1

I started my solar journey in 2005 and completely agree that the energy companies in conjunction with OFGEM and several flavours of government just haven't got their joined up thinking hats on.

The Metering Equipment Regulations and the SMETS standards were designed by committee with no regard for either the end user and with little or no forward planning for including microgeneration in the energy mix. The communications were handed to a very expensive quango (the DCC) and were mostly based on a now obsolete technology (3g cellular) which is already being switched off way ahead of the government's 'sunset' of 2032.

It is my opinion that any smart meter being installed should be the correct model with the correct feature set for any given installation, but the current industry practice seems to be 'fit whatever is rolling around in the back of the van and hope for the best'.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by RonS1

.
I am optimistic that these techniques will eventually help with driving smoother greener energy generation. However the energy supply companies need to get better with providing knowledgeable staff for support and education. I'm talking to you EON Next.

Having heard Greg Jackson (founder of Octopus Energy) interviewed on Desert-Island-Discs it strikes me that Octopus is probably one of the few companies with the vision and understanding to fully exploit the future green energy requirements - the company having been built on this foundation

Many of the other legacy energy companies such as EOn, BG etc are attempting to jump on the band-wagon, but having come from old (analogue) supply infrastructure probably don't currently have the capability, systems or trained staff to satisfy these future development needs

Greg Jackson is the founder of Octopus Energy Group, the global energy and technology company driving the affordable, green energy system of the future. Launched in 2016, the Group now serves 7.2 million customers across 18 countries, and operates a £6bn portfolio of renewable energy assets across Europe.

Octopus drives the tech-enabled green energy transition, innovating relentlessly to make energy better for consumers and the planet. Kraken, Octopus’s proprietary green tech platform, is at the heart of the Group’s growth and is now contracted to serve over 40 million accounts across the globe, with further 10 million to follow soon.

Octopus has attracted over $2.3 billion worth of funding from international energy companies, large pension funds and global investors, and has valued the company at around $8 billion.

Greg is a serial tech entrepreneur and has built and sold a number of successful businesses before starting Octopus. He is an angel investor in a wide range of start-ups, and is a key thought leader in the UK on issues related to energy transition, energy costs and innovation..

[meldrewreborn]

The notion that by encouraging consumers to shift consumption away from peak demand times is totally correct - if successful we might get away with having fewer major power stations, and that would save us all money in the long run.
But the way smart metering has developed in the UK has been a disaster of mega proportion, with systems developed which just don’t work in many locations. It’s generally accepted that to shift consumption away from peak hours pricing will be key - but if the half hourly reading can’t get through one way will the pricing information get through from the supplier in the other direction? And how do you protect the customers from short term price spikes? I’m all for incentivising consumers to use less, but I’m far less keen on punishing those who are unable to cope with the complexity of surge pricing.
UK consumers generally have not taken advantage of their ability to switch suppliers or tariffs- many are still with the successor suppliers from pre privatisation days, and it was to protect those people from being ripped off that the price cap was introduced. Now after the energy crisis competition hasn’t properly returned and the best pricing hovers fractionally just under the price caps.

so while the visionaries dream of smart meter utopia with all the benefits a fully digitised system could bring , the current situation is that we have too many smart meters that don’t work as intended, communication hubs that need to be replaced due to obsolete technology, systems that are not responsive to customer needs, suppliers that deny that the IHD is a key part of the system and perhaps more importantly a consumer base that just doesn’t understand energy billing at all, or how to secure best value. Plus there’s still a long way to go to get to near 100% smart meter coverage as the target date for reaching that has been missed and put back more times than anyone can remember.

the theory behind smart metering was and is fine, but currently we’re all paying a lot of money for it and the real benefits have still not been achieved.

[meldrewreborn]

@RonS1

I don’t think it’s a shame that @retrotecchie and I don’t have smart meters. It is a real demonstration that intelligent people can see smart metering for what it is, a very complicated and expensive system that has been poorly designed and even more badly and only partially implemented.

[RonS1]

@meldrewreborn
I didn't say that "it's a shame that you 'both' don’t have smart meters"

I said "It's a shame that the main two people contributing possible answers to my questions appear to not have smart meters and are sceptical of them.". In other words it's a shame that people with a smart meter/IHD didn't answer or indeed someone from EON with good knowledge didn't answer.


I was hoping that this forum would live up to its quote of "You'll find inspiration and support" but that's not working for me. I'll be looking elsewhere. See ya.

[retrotecchie]

@RonS1

I would love a smart meter and am only 'sceptical' because I know what they should be capable of but sadly aren't.

I do have 'intelligent metering' but have had to design and implement my own electronic and software solutions to achieve the degree of monitoring and automation that just can't be done with the sort of smart meter the energy industry have landed us with.

Wireless technology or cloud-based solutions like Bright or the E.On Next App just don't cut it for me.

I'd have a smart meter in a heartbeat so that the benefits of ToU pricing and load balancing were available to me but where I live, they don't work, energy companies will not install them, the ones that are installed no longer work due to connectivity issues and even if I could have one, they won't do what I need them to do.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

@RonS1
The Metering Equipment Regulations and the SMETS standards were designed by committee....with little or no forward planning ..... mostly based on a now obsolete technology (3g cellular) which is already being switched off way ahead of the government's 'sunset' of 2032.

I can't see how you could expect them to design a future proofed system incorporating features which hadn't even been dreamed of let alone specified - technology moves on and there's a limit to how long you can expect your existing tech. to last before requiring upgrades.

I bet the early adopters of iPhones based on 2G technology aren't continually griping on about them not being designed for 3G;4G;5G etc (which didn't exist at the time)

At least it looks like the comms hubs are designed to fall back to 2G when 3G is turned off next year, with the 2G "sunsetting" life extending to 2033. So the smart meter system should continue continue to work, with another 9 years leeway to migrate to the new 4G comms hubs. These appear to be based on long-term evolution (LTE) standards so should hopefully continue to be useable as the networks develop the 5G coverage and ultimately into 6G (and beyond?)

2G & 3G network sunsetting: The future of connectivity | Smart DCC

[Lee_EONNext]

@RonS1 It's a very difficult question for me to ask, I believe it would be best suited for the manufacture of the Panels, the IHD and then who did the install.

The wording on the Ivie (https://ivie.co.uk/eonnext/) which is one we have an affiliation too states, a pylon will appear on net exportation. Again the system would need to be compatible for this to show. I've seen a leaflet advising it will show, based on the system being compatible. I will try to find this for you.

If you're exporting then technically by definition your using less than being generated etc so I would expect to see a pylon, again not all systems and IHDs are compatible. So if it's working for you and not for someone else there is every possibility that your install is compatible and theirs isn't.

We can never predict the future nor can we predict the technology that will or not be available, however, in terms of FIT & SEG - We don't accept reads or data from an IHD anyway, you can work out everything manually using the meter reads

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Thanks