Smart meters are a ‘costly mistake’ that'll add BILLIONS to bills

"Edit: to comply with UK GOV sex discrimination laws the following addendum has been added:"

But that's astill a sort of sexist get-out clause.

Why not a simple 'Burn them!'?

>Edit: to comply with UK GOV sex discrimination laws the following addendum has been added:

Hah!

You think the diversity laws are there only to protect men & women? There's a whole range of things which people "feel they are" which have to be promoted. Have you considered the profound effect of smart meters on the furry community?

Re: Smart, huh?

NP is not securing the future. The bulk of the known sources of uranium aka yellow cake is mined in Chad which is not exactly stable, a bit like locating your energy future to the Kush mountains. Also the known reserves of uranium ore, given our present consumption, is no more than a few decades at most.

Re: SMART = Smart Meters Are Real Threat?

Particularly in the light of today's serious revelations about personal data being sold "for 5p".

Re: SMART = Smart Meters Are Real Threat?

"Smart Energy GB's response sounds exactly like what you'd expect from one of these"

Not even the POWER COMPANIES want smart meters (too much cost, too little benefit). This is entirely driven by outfits wanting to push smart meters for their own agendas.

I'm sure that skiddies will love to drive down roads switching off smart-meters as they go. It gives a whole new meaning to "War Driving" (I'm sure many people would pledge a tenner to whoever manages to switch David Cameron/Ed Milliband/Rupert Murdoch/Alec Salmond's power off remotely)

Re: Just give us the numbers

The problem with seeing the numbers (e.g. HS2) is that it just confirms your worst suspicions!

There is nothing more annoying than to read load of post-hoc bullshit whose only purpose is to try to prop up a political decision. The worst example of this in recent years has to be the dodgy Iraq dossier.

Re: Just give us the numbers

Pick a extremely high number x2 (to allow for the fact it was under budget) - cost of cancellation = amount of kick backs received.

Re: Just give us the numbers

Knowing the numbers will only tell you what everyone already knows - the benefit is not cost based. Sure, a few people will save a few quid, but most won't. The other benefits are currently not quantifiable, as the article stated, and so even with the numbers we wouldn't be able to have a sensible discussion because half the people think energy consumption would drop and the other half don't, just like in the climate debate.

Handing over the report would definitely fan the flames of people who don't think that smart meters will help reduce energy consumption and therefore carbon emissions etc. so I don't think they should hand it over. If they do, the newspapers will publish the numbers, enrage the uneducated masses and the money will definitely have been wasted. If we do nothing, then worst case is everyone gets a replacement meter which can be read remotely which would at the very least improve the archaic system we have now where once a quarter I have to let two men into my house to avoid getting estimated (read imaginary massive numbers) bills.

I'm not necessarily in favour of these meters, but the content of the article was enough to convince me that we shouldn't stop them at this point - someone clearly has an agenda in stopping them.

Re: This:

the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has refused to publish them, citing commercial embarrassment.

TFIFY

""convert an edited photo of their current mechanical meter into a meaningless number"

What, as opposed to just entering a false reading on the web site?

This could rapidly become "convert an edited photo of their current mechanical meter into a meaningless number" and "cost customers tens of pounds rather than hundreds".

When I read this part of the article I immediately thought of something like SecurID. Have the display present both the units-used counter and some cryptographically-generated hash or time signature (like a HMAC involving the current time, the value of the counter and the serial number of the meter). Of course, once the meter is in people's hands, you're bound to find someone who has the skill needed to hack the device (eg, to find the secret serial number) but the vast majority of people won't.

I agree with the people who suggested the smartphone app idea. Done right it would be vastly better (and more secure) than "smart" meters that need to be networked.

Without wanting to blow my own trumpet (too much), I'm sure I could knock up a proof of concept for this in an afternoon with a Raspberry Pi, a small screen and a mobile phone. Just use QR code libraries on the Pi and phone and you've got a fault-tolerant reader (QR includes error correction) that can automatically send an SMS reading to wherever. Of course, this is probably way too easy. I'd have to massively over-engineer it for the government to have any interest in it.

Re: IT disasters...

3) Projects to solve a non-problem.

Re: And just this morning, something else that's fishy

That was nearly OK until you mentioned the "cloud" word.

Re: And just this morning, something else that's fishy

> We need is a compact optical/WiFi device to clip onto our old electricity & gas meters that sends images to a cloud for digitization. Random checks by wetware meter readers.

Most meters have an optical port for the "wetware" meter reader. At least one company is already building clip-on hardware that will interrogate the meter using the optical port and transmit the reading to HQ via GSM.

And there is also Automated Meter Reading which has been around for years - short-range RF transceivers on the meters, meter-reading human drives down the street with an interrogation device which picks up the readings.

IMO the lure of "smart" meters is in differentiated tariffs, i.e. charging more at peak times to flatten the peaks and reduce the amount of generating capacity that needs to be kept on standby.

Unfortunately people use lots of power at peak times for a good reason (such as, they're at home and not in bed yet), so it pretty much boils down to soaking the public unless they expect half the populace to sleep from 6 p.m. to midnight, and the rest to sleep from midnight to 6 a.m.

IIRC the electricity company in South Africa determined that differentiated peak tariffs for domestic consumers only had an effect on behaviour at a level 10 times the normal electricity price.

Re: And just this morning, something else that's fishy

"Farming Today this morning - this scheme http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/control/technologies/ers/index_en.htm - laptop data entry on fishing vessels then uploading it. What could possibly go wrong?"

I built something like this a decade ago for the local(ish) prawn fisheries. It consisted of an Excel spreadsheet to fill out and a button to FTP the resulting file server where it was collated with a script and imported into an Oracle database. No need for laptops 'cause every boat already had at least three PCs on the bridge and a GSM data connection (invariably with an illegal signal amp inline - the chaos that resulted whenever a skipper forgot to turn if off when entering port was a joy to behold).

The real trick is to structure the scheme so its in the fishermen's best interest to report honestly. It turns out that if you make them feel they are part of the management process, rather than the thing being managed, you get much better data. Who'd have guessed?

"Speaking as a Scottish Power customer who, despite several frustrating phone calls and the involvement of the Ombudsman, has not had a bill for a year"

I didn't tell you this, but most of the large energy suppliers only keep all billing records for 6 months. Meaning that when they eventually ask you when you last paid a bill, say about 7 months ago...

"Speaking as a Scottish Power customer"

Get a new supplier. Seriously. SP are dreadful - up to the point of trying to leave us without any heating or ability to cook in the middle of winter for two weeks.

Re: I've always wondered...

> Hack proof

Not really, but the general idea has merit. Have to be a F/OSS implementation to ensure transparency. Also all the suppliers would need to agree to a standard and, given the fact the can't do that with current "SMART" meters, it'll never happen.