Re: Nonsense...
@AC.
I'll amend my quote. 'Only idiots and those who can't be bothered to find out through simple means don't know how much energy they're using'. You don't need a smart meter to tell you any of this. You simply need a meter display of your incomer, or a plug in meter between the device and socket.
You certainly don't need to spend £10-12billion to find out.
Some people are idiots and don't know and don't know how to find out. Replay my earlier comment about their fate. If you can't be bothered to use one of the other means to find out, you won't take any notice of what a smart meter tells you, so it's irrelevant. The point is, smart meters won't make any difference.
I have a simple plug in meter, into which I plug the appliance etc. It records both the instantaneous load and usage over time. So, I could find out the energy consumption of my washing machines programmes by simply using that, very easily. However, as I'm sure you're aware, this doesn't actually work as washing machines (and plenty of other things now) use differing amounts depending on various constaints. For instance, my dishwasher determines whether it needs to do another rinse by looking at the last rinse water. If it doesn't, that saves a lot of electricity.
Any which way, smart meters are delivering nothing that a reasonably intelligent person couldn't find out through much lower cost/benefit means.
And, if you're in electricity and can't work out that a washing machines consumption (per minute or whatever) will be more than say a lightbulb or a kettle against a telly etc., there's clearly something wrong with the education system today.