Is there any reason left not to go smart meter?

DrPhilG

New day/night compatible smart meters are almost here. Day/night tariffs will now be possible on them, but the attractive ones are all but gone.

I'm about to come off the hallowed ground of the Energia D/N 7.9c tariff and as much as it pains me, I think I might be best to request a smart meter now.

Mod Additions for reference:

RM107 Meter Read guide:

ESB Networks How to Read Your Smart Meter

RM108, Day Night Meter Read guide

ESB Networks How to Read Your Day/Night Smart Meter

Screen Breakdowns:

OBIS code name, in order it appears on RM107 meter

1.0.0 Current time - day/month/year; hour: minute

1.8.0 - (A+) - Sum of tariffs for consumed energy (1.8.1+1.8.2)

1.8.1 - (A+T1) - The component of energy consumed at night rate

1.8.2 - (A+T2) - The component of energy consumed at the daily rate

1.8.3 - (A+T3) - The component of energy consumed at peak rate

Screen Test

2.8.0 - (A-) - Sum of tariffs for energy supplied (produced) to the network (2.8.1+2.8.2)

3.8.0 - (R+) - Consumed reactive energy (+Q) component

4.8.0 - (R-) - The reactive power (-Q) component produced

OBIS code name, in order it appears on RM108 meter

1.0.0 Current time - day/month/year; hour: minute

1.8.0 - (A+) - Sum of tariffs for consumed energy (1.8.1+1.8.2)

1.8.2 - (A+T2) - The component of energy consumed at the daily rate

1.8.1 - (A+T1) - The component of energy consumed at night rate

Screen Test

2.8.0 - (A-) - Sum of tariffs for energy supplied (produced) to the network (2.8.1+2.8.2)

3.8.0 - (R+) - Consumed reactive energy (+Q) component

4.8.0 - (R-) - The reactive power (-Q) component produced

TerraSolis

I'm in the same boat with the Energia Tariff. I put in my smart meter prioritization request to ESBN about 10 days ago. Yet to hear anything back however.

(I say I, I already have a smart meter, I look after my family's farm energy for them too).

I haven't stumbled across any reasons not to anyway. Keen to be paid for actual exports rather than deemed now.

idc

For day/night tariff will you not be pushed onto a 24 hr tariff for the first month while meter calibration occurs ?

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058311315/is-there-any-reason-left-not-to-go-smart-meter

Yes, the reason is 33/15c d/n offer from flogas, no smart meter will come close that but there's a pinergy smart tariff with 6c for 2-3 hours a night but you'd want 20+ kwh battery for winter as the day rates are brutal.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043137#Comment_121043137

I have a 20kWh battery, so I can live with an extortionate day rate. Only time I'd need it is to cook Boxing Day dinner and the very rare occasion that I'd need a full car charge from near flat.

The Flogas offer isn't around currently or I'd snap it up.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042995#Comment_121042995

Esbn can't change your tariff, so that's why DN get special smart meters.

Meter comes calibrated, possibly a bad term, but possibly test for steady readings before allowing a switch from DN to a Smart tariff

idc

Its not esbn forcing you. If you ask to move to smart meter while on day/night you have no choice until they supply smart day/night meters. Due to the 30 day calibration test of how good your connection is, you would be put on 24hr for 30 days.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043853#Comment_121043853

But they're supplying smart D/N meters from next month, and there's reports you can't actually get a D/N meter installed at the moment because they've no non smart versions

3DataModem

I got a smart meter with D/N tariff capability a few months ago.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045281#Comment_121045281

What mcc are you on? I bet it's not mcc02

Gooser14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045281#Comment_121045281

What's the RM code on the meter? Is it RM108?

ECO_Mental

I think if you have Solar PV and or an EV and maybe a battery then I think you need one....its different for everybody but in my case but I am loosing by not having one.

Lost PV export I have lost about €400 here in actual FIT export charges... (€250 EI estimate vs actual of around €660)

Lost use of night time boost rate to charge MY EV, 14kWh for the 2 hour window at at saving of 8.9cent per day. Over the year this could be worth between €200-300 per year to me. Could shift more stuff to this time maybe to increase this.

Given that EI smart rates are the same as their non smart rates I am loosing out on €500-600 not have a smart meter....I've been looking to get one for over a year now, I have a D/N meter so I am down the list unfortunately

3DataModem

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045709#Comment_121045709

No idea.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046198#Comment_121046198

Check your bills, It is usually up in the top right beside your MPRN number. You are likely on a smart tariff that emulates what your previous DN tariff was. But that does not make it a DN tariff as you cannot switch to any other DN tariffs.

The DN compatible smart meters haven't been started to be installed yet.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043159#Comment_121043159

Have you called them to check? I spoke to them earlier this month and they said they said didn't expect it to go away anytime soon.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121049855#Comment_121049855

It's gone as far as I can see.

DrPhilG

An update...

I am now officially out of contract and paying about 45/25 per unit which is galling.

Energia have told me (rightly or wrongly) that even after the D/N compatible smart meters go in, they will not be offering D/N tariffs to customers. They will let existing customers see out their contract, but won't be offering another one afterwards. They said that this is the direction that the CRU and all suppliers are moving in.

ESB have told me that I'm on the priority list for the new rollout starting tomorrow (Sep 1st) but they can't give me a date yet. Energia also said that they can't request one but I have to wait for the rollout.

So for now, I'll have to suck it up. The current D/N tariffs aren't good enough to justify signing up and being hit with a €50 escape fee, and I can't take the Pinergy smart tariff yet.

Even if/when I do take that tariff, I can only add about 10kWh to the battery overnight because of the limitations of the Solis 6kW inverter. In December/January that's unlikely to get me through the day so there are some painful bills ahead.

The other 10 months of the year are fine though. I'll be able to get through the day without paying any day rate, and I'll get well paid for my then copious export.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121054135#Comment_121054135

Another option is the energia smart EV plan, 10.1c for the first 1000kwh, and then 11.7 thereafter. and you get 4 hrs instead of 3.

Energia will be able to organise that meter swap now, but, thats the end of DN for you.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121054266#Comment_121054266

I considered it, but it would only really benefit me in the winter months where the extra hour would give me another 3kWh a day.

For the rest of the year I'd be paying double for all the power I do use compared to the Pinergy option, and I would blow through that 100kWh per period (not per month) in a heartbeat when you take car charging into account.

As for replacing the meter, I did ask Energia if they could get me a regular smart meter ASAP and they said no.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121054276#Comment_121054276

You asked the wrong question re the regular smart meter, If you were to sign up for that smart plan, you would have got one fitted, thats how championc and unkel have arranged theirs. Also I never trust anything they say, different person different answer!

My Dad is coming out of contract soon too, possibly will wait it out for now, maybe these price reductions will eventually come!

DrPhilG

True, maybe if I call them up and ask to sign up to one of their smart plans they'll magically get me the meter within a week. But it'll cost me €50 to then get out of the contract afterwards.

eggy81

Does a smart meter make any difference at all when on pre pay electricity

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121054519#Comment_121054519

No, the prepay meter is after the smart meter.

What sort of rates do you have on prepay?

Jakey Rolling

I remain perplexed as to why a special D/N Smartmeter is necessary - by design, a smartmeter is going to report usage with a granularity of say 5mins, so your supplier has the information to see your usage during the normal D/N hours, and bill you accordingly. Why would the meter need to be any different?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121057782#Comment_121057782

It's to do with how they record data and hardware limitations

A smart meter follows daylight savings, so the hours of the various rates don't change

A D/N meter is always on UTC, which is why the night rate times change twice a year

A smart meter only allows data to be recorded into one register at a time. They have 3 registers, day, night and peak, which follow daylight savings

The registers are needed in case there's an issue sending the data to ESBN, if the mobile signal isn't good enough for example. It's a requirement of smart meters that they can offer an equivalent tariff to the existing meters until a customer adopts a smart tariff

For the current smart meter to record a night rate equivalent to the current D/N meter, it would need to record data into a Night register which follows daylight savings and one which doesn't, which isn't supported

The new "Smart D/N" meters just have a different configuration where the day and night registers don't observe daylight savings

DrPhilG

But @the_amazing_raisin can the new day/night compatible smart meters do it all?

24hr, d/n AND smart tariffs?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058495#Comment_121058495

Sort of, I think

The document below might explain it better

https://cdn.rmdservice.com/media/docs/default-source/governance/igg/2022/november-2022-igg/dr1225-mcc02-meter-exchanges.pdf?sfvrsn=8bf61215_1

From what I can tell the new Smart D/N meter will have two registers which record the same data as a regular D/N meter

But they say it can be remotely configured later to be the same as an MCC16 smart meter

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121057823#Comment_121057823

Energia have told me (rightly or wrongly) that even after the D/N compatible smart meters go in, they will not be offering D/N tariffs to customers. They will let existing customers see out their contract, but won't be offering another one afterwards. They said that this is the direction that the CRU and all suppliers are moving in.

If there are no plans to offer DN rates anymore why are they installing them?

Plenty of people live in apartments that are all electric, who can't install heat pumps, solar or installation, which have storage heating. If they loose DN tarrifs their properties will be even more expensive to heat.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058951#Comment_121058951

Devils advocate here:

Energy suppliers no longer are required to offer all tariffs

Waterpower for instance currently don't do any smart tariffs

If you are on a DN you possibly won't be able to renew but you can stay on the non discounted "standard rate" eg they can't kick you off.

Electric Ireland is one of the "suppliers of last resort" used when a energy company goes bust, they may be always required to offer something.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058951#Comment_121058951

I suspect that suppliers will still be required to offer D/N tariffs, but they won't be offering any discounts or cashback.

It'll just be a variable rate tariff without a discount

If you look at the new supplier, YouNo (or whatever they're called), it's hard to see how their service is remotely useful without a smart meter, but they still offer standard meter tariffs

I think they'd prefer you to switch to a smart meter but are required to offer standard tariffs

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058996#Comment_121058996

There hundreds of thousands of properties built around night rate electric storage heating. The energy suppliers should be forced by the CRU to offer night rate till these people have a viable alternative, instead the CRU doesn't want DN tariffs.

So the choice for these people is to pay a fortune to stay on the most expensive DN tarrif or pay even more on a smart meter. You think with the amount of wind turbines that have to be idled during the night that they would be driving more people to DN plans, the dream of smart devices turning on when we have excess capacity is a long way off.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121059130#Comment_121059130

But the NSH customers won't be on MCC02. They have their own meter configuration code - MCC03 (24h).

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121059259#Comment_121059259

Looks like the MCC03 replacement is already partly defined, there's around 50k installations and about half of them don't even use the night storage meter and will be replaced with a normal smart meter

https://cdn.rmdservice.com/media/docs/default-source/change-control/mcr---sitefinity/mcr1226-mcc03-meter-exchanges.pdf?sfvrsn=9a52ea54_1

I think the plan for be remaining customers is TBD but they'll probably get a normal smart meter and the night storage meter will be left alone

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121059285#Comment_121059285

If they are removing the DN tariffs then what difference will having the night storage meter make?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121060644#Comment_121060644

Night storage is usually a different tariff anyway

As I said, I don't think suppliers can refuse a standard tariff, but they aren't obligated to offer any deals

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043853#Comment_121043853

I'm thinking / have proof that the 30 day calibration this is utter b****X.

I got my Smart Meter installed last Thursday afternoon. On the ESB Networks portal, I have export data from Fri 01 Sept, and I can download the HDR file

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046003#Comment_121046003

It's because of this that I booked my "regular" Smart Meter last Monday, and it was installed last Thursday.

I have now signed up to the Pinergy Drive plan - 5c night rate. I've an EV and a 20kWh battery. I plan to use zero day units

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121062480#Comment_121062480

Your plan will fail unless you have a n inverter which drains 0.0kwh during the day (none do that I am aware of unless you config them as offgrid)

What you mean to say is that you think you will use 0 day units but in reality you will use 10-30kwh day units per month 🤣

Which is of course nothing once you start dumping the batteries into the grid.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121063086#Comment_121063086

Sofar, you can configure them to slightly export all the time.

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121063086#Comment_121063086

Last month, I used ONE day unit, and that was mainly down to the Zappi reaction timings.

Going forward, I will never use the Zappi with solar. It will only be used as a regular type charger at night.

The Sofar ME3000 allows a CT offset to be set, to move the Zero point, so I export slightly constantly

I've only used 11 day units since the end of April

3DataModem

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046707#Comment_121046707

All smart meters (as defined by ESB networks) are D/N tariff compatible. The smart meter knows to the minute when you are consuming power and how much, it doesn't need two meters rolling over separately. This idea of a "D/N smart meter" makes no sense to me. Now, the issue is that lots of suppliers do not offer D/N tariffs to those with smart meters.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121064316#Comment_121064316

It depends a lot on what you mean by compatible

As discussed previously, in the RM documents I posted a while back, the smart meters that have been installed cannot implement a D/N tariff equivalent to the MCC02 meter as they are currently configured

TLDR, they can only record into one register at a time and the registers on the current meters follow daylight savings, whereas a D/N meter doesn't

The new Smart D/N meters aren't actually different hardware, they're just configured differently

In terms of what the suppliers could and couldn't offer, this also depends a bit on the smart meter installed

The two meter types for Smart Meters are MCC12 and MCC16. They seem to be the same hardware the difference is how often they report data to ESBN

MCC12 reports every 30 mins

MCC16 is recorded every 2 months

They both have 3 registers, day, night and peak

I assume the latter are for areas with poor reception so they could be read manually, or remotely from the street if needed (I vaguely remember the meters could have a ZigBee radio installed which allowed you to read the meter as the van drove by)

So if you're on an MCC12 then the supplier can do whatever they want down to 30 mins agile tariffs. I assume the EV tariffs require customers to be on that meter type

If you're on MCC16 it sounds like you're stuck on the Day, Night, Peak tariff

EDIT: Some more info here

https://www.bordgaisenergy.ie/home/help/what-is-a-mcc-code

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121063237#Comment_121063237

Must be the sofar then.

Bu yeah there is a CT ratio offset as well in the sunsynk but I have changed it from 2000:1 to a few hundred above/below, made 0 difference.

I would like to set a minimal export as well but not sure how/if it's possible on the sunsynk. It annoys... a lot.

irishchris

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121064771#Comment_121064771

Yes similar problem myself with the sunsynk I set up for a family member. Frustrating as editing the ratio made little to no difference in it for me.

In sharp contrast to the sofar HydEP hybrid which averages about 40-50w in total day usage each day

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121064471#Comment_121064471

And to add to that, while the smart meter does know when the power is used, you can't go to it and press a button to show day units and night units as you can with a DN

To have a drop in replacement it needs to do that.

DN also doesn't observe DST, that could be another factor in why a differently configured SM is needed

the_amazing_raisin

On a slightly different topic, has anyone had a situation where they have a negative annual bill due to FIT?

As in between lower consumption, charging at night rate and FIT (after tax) you made money for the year

I'm curious what happens in that case, it would usually just end up as credit on your account but can you get it repaid to you by the supplier?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121070555#Comment_121070555

I think Irishchris did. (Possibly because of the first few months of a high level pay) but they paid out.

I'm expecting a refund from Energia any day now, but that's a side effect of nearly 18months of backdated FIT

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121070583#Comment_121070583

Yeah I had a similar situation, but again was due to the level pay being too high, eventually got around €500 back

I wonder if there's some clause that you can't actually make a profit off the FIT 🤔

irishchris

After 12 months including bills and fit made profit of just over 1300 euro. Paid full amount to bank account and anther 500 euro built up since them. Level pay is only 5€ a month and has been since the initial 116 then 26 for first three months.

Large array and battery storage though

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121071976#Comment_121071976

Excellent stuff, that's what I'm dreaming of achieving 👍

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121071976#Comment_121071976

Of course, that's your profit, which of course means that your annual bill for consumption was zero 👏👍