Pitchfork-wielding mobs encircle smart meters

What's the real problem here?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but being able to know how much I am consuming hour by hour is a real bonus. Sick an tired of yelling at my kids to turn stuff on the assumption of saving the planet and my cash. One of these, giving me up to the minute accurate display, providing I can see it, will be a great idea.

One thing to get paranoid about Mandy and his P2P witchhunt, he his a dirtbag and another to simply be paranoid about every little thing! You happily buy a new car with on board computer that measures almost all your actiivties in its little tiny "brain", max speeds, max revs, distance, how do you knwo what that in-built satnav uint is gathering without telling you? The you take it in ready for the mechanic to hook up his USB cable when it goes in for it's service, yet you shout when the power company tries to ensure total openess about your usage of something you pay way over the odds for!

Having said that, I want a simple system that measures and sends back the results. I do not want something that will contol what I can and cannot run on the power. I am careful already, not like some nobs in my street who, when i have passed their houses at 4am, have left the entire downstairs lighting on full blast! Oh and don't get me started on these piricks who insist on lighting their squalid little council squats with gaudy outside lights, shortly after having the cladding fitted!

carrot and stick

Depends on the size of the carrot and the size of sick. I also live in a small falt and don't want to woken up by my washing machine starting and stopping at times that sute the lecy company thank you very much.

So I suppose I will have to get used to paying through the nose for my lecy! Any one know where I can generator? I aso live in a block of flats so a solor cell is useless before someone comes up with that idea.

I like mine

I find my smart meter to be very friendly, allowing me to view my usage at a half hourly resolution. When there is no-one in the house I can even see the hot water pump and fridge/freezer pump turning on and off on the graphs - and the constant drain of the broadband router and TV booster!

I changed to First-Utility to get the benfit of early smart meter instilation, and I've been very happy. Now if only I could be the previous incumbent (nPower) to believe the photographs I have of their terminal meter reading and then refund me the direct debit overpayment!

@Dave_H - direct debit overpayment

That's why you never ever let them have direct access to any account you care about... especially if you have YOUR money in it.

More horse poo

Two months ago In San Diego, CA, the mayor proudly announced that San Diegans had voluntarily reduced water consumption by 10% and that we were all such fine people for that. This month, the water board announced a 5% increase in water-rates - the 5th such increase in the last several years.

Apparently, this was in keeping with the credo of CA water-rights being mostly water-wrongs or that of no good deed going unpunished but, truth be told, it was more in keeping with a corrupting disease that rots CA state, almost every CA city, and almost every privatized (naturally monopolistic) utility - pensionitus. Politicians and utilities award impossibly generous pay and pensions to all public and utility workers (and themselves) based on the best of boom-times tax revenues multiplied by the most optimistic predictions of future investment returns calculated at the height of boom markets, then cast about for truly gargantuan tax additions and increases and service cuts when reality returns. Being legal contracts, there is no readjustment possible without bankruptcy. I'm no "no-new-taxes" nutcase, but seeing state, city and utility workers retiring on at least twice the generous benefits given to federal employees is turning me into a no-new-taxes-in-CA nut case.

The same with the electrical utilities. Being natural monopolies, the only thing limiting gross inefficiency and incompetence is competent regulation. However, as bribery has been legalized by our state and federal legislators and courts here, the regulators are in the pay and pockets of the regulated. The smart-grid is just another short-sighted, expensive, incompetently implemented stop-gap measure to squeeze another 10 to 15 % out of existing generating capacity that will be absorbed by ever-expanding population of citizens and ever increasing number of illegal aliens over the next decade (that, when at least 30-40 percent of energy is wasted on more obviously trivial pursuits). Then what?

Americans are suckers for the techno-fix and any call for reason is branded as Luddite - usually by well funded lobbies which directly benefit from plunging on into the abyss unbridled. It's out of control at all levels and doom-sayer that I might appear, I can see no way out.