Is my smart meter spying on me?

Hi there, we are happy for commenters to provide links in their posts, but we prefer them to have some context to the comment – and some greater explanation if possible. Lots of comments containing only links don’t really add a strong contribution to the discussion. If you’d like to resubmit with more context/opinion in your comment we’ll reconsider. Thanks.

Apparently, not when you buy a new house it isn’t; an electricity smart meter will be installed by whichever electricity supply company is contracted by the housebuilder to provide a supply to each property in advance of sale. You probably have the legal right to have it removed and replaced with a dumb meter at your own expense but that probably would not make financial sense given the minimal running cost of an electricity meter.

This comment was removed at the request of the user

You raise an interesting point, G Price. I wonder how we did become hooked on a policy to install smart meters at enormous expense and questionable utility. Did it come from Ofgem? Were they hoodwinked by the energy industry into pushing for smart meters? How did the government come to impose this burden on millions of consumers? – I don’t recall it being mentioned in Parliament. Which Minister authorised it? Was it one of the Coalition’s odd ventures? It now comes under the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS] which, unsurprisingly, is very upbeat about them on its website. It says “Smart meters put consumers in control of their energy use, allowing them to adopt energy efficiency measures that can help save money on their energy bills and offset price increases“, which is not untrue but ignores the fact that most consumers can do those things adequately without a smart meter. And if that’s the best that can be said about them it does suggest they are a solution looking for a problem.

I haven’t seen those appalling cartoon characters Buzz and Leccy lately on TV commercials for smart meters: have they been consigned to the dustbin of bad promotions? The energy companies themselves seem to be more concerned with getting us to have a smart heating controller [for £20 a month!] that we can use to change the settings remotely and pep the heating up if the weather turns bad on the way home. I won’t be getting one because it would have no value to us but I can see the appeal of this device and think the energy companies will make more money out of that than any savings they make from smart meters. They are under an obligation to offer smart meters to everyone by 2020 but I think they are already seeing diminishing returns from their efforts and will scale back their activity levels now that the initial surge has been satisfied and demand wanes.

Just think what £11 billion could have achieved in the care home and domiciliary services sectors, plus leaving some over for the NHS!

After switching energy supplier I had new gas and electricity smart meters fitted and was supplied with a new display unit. This is because there is not a common standard for meters and the person who did the job said that the problem had not yet been resolved. I suspect that the estimated cost of the smart meter roll out may have been significantly underestimated.

The engineer also told me that he regularly discovered cases of people stealing energy by bypassing meters and he had found one case earlier that day. He said that smart meters would help the companies to detect fraud. That’s not one of the commercial advantages of having a smart meter that I would have thought about, but with meter readers no longer needing to visit regularly because customers are supplying their own readings, it will be easier for opportunists to steal energy. It’s hardly surprising that the companies are not publicising this benefit to them.

A meter reader called on us recently. Checking for unauthorised connexions around the electricity meter is an important function and smart meters will make it easier to identify possible cases of illegal abstraction. However, I predict that those who bypass their meter are likely to be disinclined to have a smart meter fitted. Only when the roll-out gets near to 100% [if ever] will it be worth sending an inspector to every household without one to find out why not.

Looking at the website of Energy UK [the trade association for the UK’s energy industry] I was somewhat surprised to read the following : “Smart meters are being installed in every home in Great Britain between now and 2020. Your energy supplier will tell you when they plan to install your smart meter between now and then“, At least the government’s ‘Smart Meters: A Guide’ website has the decency to explain, eventually, that “smart meters will be rolled out as standard across the country by the end of 2020. But there is no legal obligation on individuals to have one.”

The Energy UK website goes on to say that “the Government is overseeing the rollout of smart meters and has set out the rules for the management and use of data collected from your smart meters. Your energy supplier will continue to hold your personal details on your account“. This could be more informative and less economical in explanation of what data will be held and how consumers can manage it; this is set out later on but digging out the detail is laborious.

I do hope that smart meters will make it harder for customers to steal energy. I don’t watch commercial TV, so do not know if customers are told that there is no obligation to have a smart meter. I have not seen this in other advertising. It’s good that meters are still being inspected, John, but I cannot remember when I last had a visit from a meter reader.

One of the benefits cited for having a smart meter is accurate billing. For example, Ofgem states: “Your energy company, and the energy networks, can access appropriate data to enable them to send you accurate bills and carry out other essential tasks.” After more than a year with e.on and a smart meter I believe that the bills were accurate but they kept my account well in credit, just like they had done in my previous home, which did not have a smart meter. At least I have now had a full refund.

Not only have many smart meters that are incompatible with other suppliers been fitted but apparently this is still happening, though this would change soon. I don’t know if my new meters are the new ones or ones that could lose functionality if I change supplier in future.

I’m beginning to wonder if the technology in smart meters will be about as reliable and long lasting as the technology in smart TVs.

I have a friend who has Utilita smart meters as part of a pre-payment tariff.

In theory, top-ups made in-store or on-line are automatically credited to these meters, sparing folk from the traditional frantic search for the meter keys, each time a top-up is needed.

In practice, that facility now seldom works, so top-up codes have to be keyed, either via the very tiny keypad on each meter front panel, or via the touchscreen wifi “tablet” display unit.

In a previous post I mistakenly referred to the appalling cartoon characters “Buzz and Leccy”. I meant “Gaz and Leccy”. No one has corrected me which shows what little impression they have made; either that or nobody is willing to admit to having seen the smart meter adverts.

Concentrate, Ward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuF_JtBaofg It’s a bit misleading to say that there is no extra cost of having smart meters installed.

I can see they mean “as a zero cost option for bill payers”.

Nonetheless, I doubt that manufacturers supply the meters free of charge, or that the meters are installed by unpaid volunteers.

The cost of the roll out – which is shared by all customers, whether or not they have smart meters – has been well publicised. I wonder if this includes the cost of replacing incompatible ones. It’s common sense to set a standard beforehand, if necessary after carrying out some trial installations in one part of the country.

The problem with the huge cost of this programme is that it is falling on all consumers regardless of whether or not they will have them installed. Many poorer and older consumers will probably not bother with smart meters and devices even though they could potentially benefit from having better knowledge of their consumption; however, as G Price says above, they are possibly using their energy in the most economical manner possible in their circumstances, and whether to have a light on or the heating running is not a matter of choice but necessity. For such consumers the levies on energy bills that are paying for the roll-out of smart meters will bear more heavily on them than on others so it is a regressive form of tax.

In many cases such consumers are also deprived of the opportunity to make additional savings because they are not in a position to elect for paperless billing. When savings for the many add hardship to the few and most vulnerable I am not sure we have got the balance right. Do we really need a discount for paperless billing? For many of us it is a convenience worth having in its own right.

Presumably it is necessary to have a separate monitoring device for each meter, gas and electricity.

Does there need to be an electricity supply to the gas meter in order to install a smart meter? Without some difficult wiring there is no electricity supply anywhere near our gas meter which is on the front of the house, all the internal gas pipes are concealed within the structure, and the electricity meter is some distance away in the garage. Perhaps if they are battery driven someone will have to come round once a year to change the battery.

On the question of data control, I can see no reason to store the consumption profile data for more than a short period after the bill has been produced. Production of the bill only needs the aggregate consumption figures for the different tariff rates for the specific billing period. There should be no opportunity provided to enable an external party to develop a household’s activity or occupation profile. Certainly no marketing should be generated off the back of the half-hourly meter readings. Concern over that contingency would put many people off from having smart meters installed so it would be good to air it publicly.

This comment was removed at the request of the user

John – A smart gas meter contains a battery and I understand that it will let the company know if it needs replacement and display a message to let the customer know. I do think poorer and older customers could benefit from smart meters because they show the amount of fuel used, removing the uncertainty of how much a forthcoming bill could be. My previous display unit showed the charges excluding the standing charge, whereas the new one includes these charges. Prior to smart meters you either had to have prepayment meters or able to read (not always easy, depending on where meters are sited) and calculate consumption to be able to keep an eye on consumption.

Thank you, Duncan. I long since ceased to regard as strange anything you report from your global cyber monitoring station international headquarters centre [like GCHQ only bigger] and your panoptical browser arrays, and you beat Wavechange to the answer by nearly three hours so I am duly impressed.

Our gas meter is a quaint box-like apparatus with rounded corners and pipes going in and out with one going into the house. It lives in a little box surrounded by leaves, cobwebs, spiders and other interesting creatures which I vacuum out from time to time. I have to get down on my hands and knees to read it while propping the lid up with a stick that I have fashioned out of an old mop handle. I understand this is a contractual requirement designed to ensure due diligence in performing the monthly meter reading. This is such an exciting activity [even more so than exciting the European Union] that I could not bear to be denied it by the provision of a smart gas meter so I have not asked for one, hence I have no idea how it would work without a permanent electricity supply.

We do have a smart electricity meter but I have never taken the monitoring device out of its box in the five years we have lived in the house. I am quite content to supply monthly readings at the same time as I am doing the gas and I have the web page open. E.On’s webpage always tells me my electricity meter readings are wrong anyway, but I have got over that now. Since they have recently taken a physical reading by a human being perhaps our stars are in alignment at last; I haven’t checked as I shan’t be sending them a meter reading until the new year.

I regard the quarterly bills as something of a lottery with their wild fluctuations and all the consistency of a yo-yo. I never jump for joy when the occasional bonus bill arrives predicting a windfall since it has a mercurial character not found in any other aspect of accounts administration to my knowledge.

From what Wavechange says it seems that customers with battery powered gas meters are going to have to consult their monitoring devices from time to time to see whether the battery needs replacing. I have no inclination to do that so they would have to send an e-mail, but are we expected to supply and fit a new battery ourselves? I am surprised that with modern micro-engineering it is not possible to install a fly-wheel driven by the gas pressure on the supplier’s side of the meter to generate enough power to transmit the half-hourly consumption data.

Moving on to the more important question of helping those who would benefit most from being able to check on their energy use, I agree with Wavechange’s comment but I still think the uptake will be low in that category and even those with a smart meter fitted might not actually make much use of the monitoring device. I would suggest there should be a programme to install and explain to confused people how to make the best use of them.

And finally, . . . Duncan rightly warns us of a future prospect, currently kept under wraps by the energy industry, that in due course consumers without smart meters will be charged more for their energy than those with them. I would consider that pernicious but I have not seen anything from the government or Ofgem that rules it out. Time for a question in the House perhaps.

This comment was removed at the request of the user

It’s very difficult to prove safety, John. We learn by experience and sometimes products are withdrawn. The best example I know is gardening chemicals, where hundreds have been withdrawn or changed in formulation over the years.

Back in the early 80s, many were concerned about electromagnetic radiation from microwave ovens, but most homes have one and few remain concerned. I still have a government leaflet about the possible risk of using mobile phones. When it was produced, fifteen or twenty years ago, we were still uncertain about the long-term risks and caution was advised, particularly over children using phones. Some remain concerned about wireless routers that broadcast signals round our homes.

Here is current government information about smart meters and health: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/smart-meters-radio-waves-and-health/smart-meters-radio-waves-and-health

There is no need for anyone to allow smart meters to be installed, but the companies conveniently forget to mention this in their marketing.

There is no requirement to have smart meters fitted, Tracey: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/do-i-have-to-accept-a-smart-meter It looks as if your supplier has given false information.

I suggest you contact Citizens Advice. Can you let us know the name of the supplier in case they are giving the same information to others.