Smart meter

cena

Are you getting a smart meter.

I have not approved the company to put one in yet. I don't think I will get one, as I can see driving my crazy checking on the how much energy is been used.

Badly Drunk Boy

You can still check what energy you're using with your 'stupid' meter.

Leg End Reject

I have one but haven't changed to the smart meter tariff. The ESB don't ask for your permission to install one, they just let you know it will be upgraded, your only choice is whether you change the tariff. As they're planning to charge more for peak times it's a no from me.

ELM327

I've had mine removed

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738335#Comment_119738335

You're perfectly entitled to refuse one, it's been discussed many times on here.

Ubbquittious

I will be holding on to the old backward-spinning one as long as possible

daheff

Refused mine being replaced also.

Can't see how I'd save from a smart tariff. Energy companies don't tend to try to save you money. Already do as much as we can off peak.

Plus house is about 5 years old with a digital meter already. Why replace that before it's useful life is up? Seems like an awful waste to me

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738393#Comment_119738393

Really? Too late now. 😔

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119738379#Comment_119738379

ESB removed it?

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119739172#Comment_119739172

Yup. Replaced with a day night meter in august

Gregor Samsa

I had no problem with getting one installed. Quite happy not to have a meter reader coming out or having to submit my own readings.

I haven't moved to a smart tariff, though and won't until I can see for myself the savings or lifestyle adjustments I'd have to make to make it worth my while. At the moment, you can't utilise the smart part of the meter unless you're on a smart tariff, which is really stupid. Seemingly there's going to be a "data hub" website launched next month that will allow you to log in and analyse (minus one day) your electricity usage, even if you're not on a smart tariff. That will at least make the meter more useful.

But lets face facts: there's going to come a point that those not on smart tariffs are going to be penalised. They won't make people get them, they'll just make it uneconomical not to.

blade1

Hope the fitters don't mind my Wasps 😁

xxxxxxl

Scam meter more like it.

beggars_bush

Meter is inside our house, so won't be allowing them in as we both work

Gooser14

If one buys a house with a smart meter installed & where the previous owner had a smart plan, can the new owner revert to a 24 hour plan?

Ray Palmer

Some strange comments here about them. It is just a new meter and you don't need to change tariffs. Had to apply to have one put in myself rather than being asked. We got €300 credit on our account because they estimated the bills for a bit. Now no need for them to enter the house to read the meter which is convenient.

No sure what the fear is about?

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119764387#Comment_119764387

The smart tariffs are crap. The more smart meters that are installed the more they'll be tempted to start grandfathering the dumb plans. Smart meters are also unfavourable to those with solar panels

There are also some privacy concerns. For example if they see that your usage kicks off at 11 or so in the morning they might be inclined to think you're on the dole and start sending your bill every month. There is lots of other information that can be garnered about you using AI overlords which no doubt they are rubbing their hands together at the prospect of doing

astrofool

They will likely raise the standard tariffs above smart once the energy crisis is over.

I also believe its in the gift of ESB Networks if they'll let you keep your old one or not, i.e. they're not bothered if you want to keep your old meter for now, but can cut you off if you refused work.

Gooser14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119768847#Comment_119768847

The following is an interesting post from elsewhere on boards:

"Electric Ireland told me the other day that ordinary day rates will not be available from 2024 if you have a smart meter."

Dyr

This reminds me, Bord Gais have been sending me letters about replacing my meter because it will be ten years old soon. Apparenty involves a full once over of the whole house.

They can go and whistle

Ubbquittious

Meter reader called here twice in about a month and a half after being absent for about 6 months or more. Those fcuking power companies have put them into over drive to make sure they collect every penny of their massive price increases after absolutely years of trying to automate meter readers out of existence so they could pocket their wages in order to fuel/upgrade their superyachts.

freshpopcorn

Our meter was outside and we were happy to get the meter installed. We honestly thought it would better.

However the plans from what we could see wouldn't benefit us at all. So, it's not activated!

Montage of Feck

I'm sick of smart technology, it won't be installed in my house.

spurious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119771309#Comment_119771309

It's all fun and games until the data centre goes down.

Jinglejangle69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119768867#Comment_119768867

Don’t.

Those new metres have known problems of pulsing when no gas is being used.

Montage of Feck

More like fart technology.

This thread ought to be moved to the conspiracy forum! It’s a meter, FFS. Maybe some people has a vaccination against water meters and it’s given immunity to all meters.

Potential-Monke

Getting ours in 2 weeks. Has a look at EI's smart plans last night. Unless I'm misreading something, they all seem cheaper than the standard rates and some would definitely save us money, specifically the night saver as I work/live nights. Now with the fathers oxygen concentrator, we probably won't see any savings anyway, but it's more the monitoring we're interested in.

I understand the worries, but I also think like others that people will eventually be priced out of the non-smart tariffs eventually. What the gubbermant wants, they usually get. There's probably already more than enough people getting them so there's no stopping now.

Cranks who don’t want a smart meter won’t be forced to take one. They’ll just be moved to a more expensive standard unit rate plan. A meter reader will still call and read the meter.

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119765506#Comment_119765506

Jesus 2 posts and full of crap. First of all the old meters rarely spin backwards, the majority of them have a notch to prevent backwards motion. Unless you're one of the lucky few the best that you can get with a solar feed in is that the meter barely moves and you get an estimated payment for the feed in.

Second, I don't see how smart meters would be detrimental to someone with solar. I have an old meter but with solar. I want the smart meter in because I can avail of getting payment per unit sent to the grid, get cheaper night rates to charge battery etc. I have more control over how my house is run and how much it costs. This is with a heat pump to boot. It's been miles cheaper this year compared to last with an old gas boiler and no solar.

Finally, the idea that they'll figure you're on the dole (wtf?) is absurd. Working from home is a thing and it's extremely common since COVID. Use of that type of metric to target people for whatever would be a massive privacy violation and leave them open to legal issues.

Potential-Monke

I doubt they going to be able to tell the difference between a laptop being used to work vs a laptop being used to relax.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802727#Comment_119802727

I doubt your electric company gives a shite if you’re employed or not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802727#Comment_119802727

“Monke had spent the last 6 hours trying to pull the plum off himself while viewing 4K videos on a selection of one handed websites”

Potential-Monke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802943#Comment_119802943

I mean, I'll tell them that myself if they want, whether working or not! Also, not trying. Successfully.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802376#Comment_119802376

They're cheaper off-peak compared to 24-hour or flat rate tariffs if you can shift your usage into the 2300-0800 timeframe.

However you could always have done this using a day/night or nightsaver tariff on the older digital meters for decades.

And that's where the rip-off is happening now.

Compare the traditional, decades old day/night plans against these shiny new smart time of use plans and the smart plans work out more expensive in every case, unless you're a particularly low energy user, since the standing charge is a bit less on the smart plans.

For example, Energia is 43.6c per unit and €236.62 per year on 24-hour plan versus:

"Old" Day/Night... Smart Meter

€296.41.............. €236.62................. Standing Charge per year

47.77c................ 52.52c................... Day Rate 8AM-5PM

47.77c................ 57.53c................... Peak Rate 5PM-7PM

47.77c................ 52.52c................... Day Rate 7PM-11PM

13.75c................ 28.17c................... Night Rate 11PM-2AM

13.75c................ 12.64c................... Night Rate 2AM-6AM

13.75c................ 28.17c................... Night Rate 6AM-8AM

SSE Airtricity is 43.41c per unit and €240.97 per year on 24-hour plan versus:

"Old" Day/Night... Smart Meter

€309.56............. €240.97.................. Standing Charge per year

44.34c............... 45.32c.................... Day Rate 8AM-5PM

44.34c............... 57.27c.................... Peak Rate 5PM-7PM

44.34c............... 45.32c.................... Day Rate 7PM-11PM

27.52c............... 29.4c..................... Night Rate 11PM-8AM

Once you've had a smart meter installed, you can't get the old day/night tariff, even if you haven't activated the smart meter - ESBN won't allow it and this is fully sanctioned by the CRU.

Once you go onto any smart meter plan, then you can't go back onto a 24-hour plan either.

It's a captive market and the providers are making sure they're building a price uplift in as people are gradually being forced into these smart tariffs with no way back.

Jinglejangle69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802045#Comment_119802045

I have an email stating there is a fault with some of the new metres and they reinstalled the old mechanical one in my house.

Unless they are lying to me and telling me there is a fault with their new metres when there isn’t.

Now there’s an interesting conspiracy you have just made up.

Nermal

Why should I be penalised for my consumption pattern? I'm not the one who decided to start using intermittent renewable energy sources.

If you want to connect them to the grid and sell them to me, you should bear the cost of turning them into reliable, constant and cheap electricity.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802651#Comment_119802651

I am one of the lucky few then. With a smart meter I wouldn't be even getting half as much per unit exported and some parasitic reseller (I squared capital or the right honourable Sir Philips Davies) would be charging a huge margin on me sending power to the neighbours. You will get better rates at present on an ordinary day/night meter.

They will indeed be able to tell you are on the dole/wfh/ordinary commuter by analysing patterns from your meter. Especially with good training data fed into AI algorithm. There may be false positives/negatives but they will be low

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119764090#Comment_119764090

Nope. It happened to me with a brand new build. The builders put the house on a smart plan and now I'm stuck with that. Electric Ireland gave me a 24 hour tariff but it's still split into day/peak/night so they'll probably up the peak rate.

Gooser14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803292#Comment_119803292

Looking through various posts on smart meters it looks like you still have the smart meter replaced with a day/night meter. I have been on a day/night meter for over 20 years & I understand it won't be replaced with a smart meter which I'm pleased about.

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803183#Comment_119803183

So what are they going to do with that data? This is tinfoil hat territory.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803369#Comment_119803369

Yup. MCC02 (Day Night) customers are not eligible for a smart meter.

I'm thankful for that too, as my rates (28c day 7c night fixed until mid next year) are not available to MCC16 customers

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803835#Comment_119803835

Use it themselves by limiting your credit, sell it to advertisers. This is not tinfoil hat this is happening with other data every day of the week and has become fairly normal unfortunately. Obviously they won't sell it straight away but eventually there will be a plan that gives you a few % discount in return for Google or someone else getting your data, then the discount will slowly disappear and the data collection becomes normalised. Companies will always do all they can get away with or slightly more to make a few bob.

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803901#Comment_119803901

I'm well aware of data mining on the internet. Data mining from a smart meter is a different thing altogether. I suggest having a read.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2022/si/37/made/en/pdf

I'll happy lodge a data request for my information and where it has been shared after having a smart meter for a few months. I doubt it will have been sold on.

Ger Roe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119804518#Comment_119804518

Data won't be sold on yet.... these things take time to bed in and be accepted... or forgotten. As the other poster said, there could be an incentive discount applied to convince you to offer up your data - just like we all do every day when we click terms and conditions on the web, that prevent us from doing anything, unless we agree to join the club.

I am old enough to remember when bank ATM cards first were introduced and they were promoted as transaction fee free and that they were going to drive the move to much cheaper banking, because the processing costs and associated labour costs were going to be much lower for the banks. In time... it all changed and we now get charged more for less services .... no one around at the time remembers that it was supposed to be cheaper banking for all , and the younger folk think that this present model of operation is way it always worked. I am even old enough to remember getting paid interest on my savings, because it was a fundamental commercial principle that the banks paid you for the use of the money that you left on deposit with them.

Companies that are working to rip you off more effectively, play a very long game. Be it banks, insurance, broadband, or energy companies .... they are not operating for the benefit of the consumer and fanfare announced operational 'advances' that they introduce, are purely for their benefit but usually dressed up as a temporary gain for the customer, to ensure initial buy in. It doesn't last .....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119807429#Comment_119807429

I haven't paid a cent in bank charges for the past 20 years.

I have however paid the various government taxes and duties on using my cheques (about 1 a year) credit and atm cards.

And frankly I couldn't give a turkey's gizzard if the electric companies sell the details of my consumption to the man in the moon, Mick Wallace and Joe Biden's granny!

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119807429#Comment_119807429

So data being sold by electric companies is purely hypothetical.

Gotcha.

blueser

Have I got this right; if your meter is located externally, they don't need to enter the property to do any of the necessary work?

Gooser14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119808620#Comment_119808620

That is correct.

blueser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119808632#Comment_119808632

Thanks.

s8n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119765506#Comment_119765506

Does the tinfoil scratch your head ?