Drawbacks to being smart
Smart meters are better for the planet — but there is a downside, says Paul Lewis.
Electricity and gas suppliers are bombarding customers with messages about taking out our old meters and replacing them with smart ones. Readers have asked me if they should say yes. The answer isn’t quite that easy: there are positives but there can be a few negatives as well.
A smart meter automatically sends the supplier details of how much electricity or gas you have used as often as every half-hour. That means you don’t have to read the meter – or let someone in to do it – and bills should be accurate even when prices change. Some suppliers now offer the cheapest rates to people who have a smart meter. And some offer special low prices for charging up your car or doing your washing overnight.
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Smart meters come with a display – an “IHD” or in-home display – that shows how much energy you are using and what it’s costing. The idea is that when you see that boiling the kettle costs more than 1p a minute and a 15-minute electric shower costs 70p you will drink less tea and wash more quickly – a win-win for you and the planet. But IHDs can go wrong; and when they do, it is not always clear who’s responsible for replacing them, or how quickly that will happen.
The latest statistics from the Department for Energy show that around two-thirds of all the domestic gas and electricity meters in the UK are “smart”. But about one in ten of those smart meters aren’t working properly and are as dumb as the old meters they replaced. When that happens, reading them yourself can be challenging. Those official figures also indicate it will take about six years to replace all dumb meters with smart ones – and more than 12 to make sure that all smart meters are working properly.
Official policy is that no one will be forced to have a smart meter. But when your old meter wears out (perhaps after ten or 15 years), your supplier is allowed to insist on replacing it with a smart one. So eventually all meters will be smart – though by then some of the technology will be 20 years old, and they may all need replacing again!
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