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There are several comments from people who don't see the point of smart meters, or think that it's just about removing the need for meter readers. There are tw
by inigo 3y ago
There are several comments from people who don't see the point of smart meters, or think that it's just about removing the need for meter readers.
There are two important things that can only be done via smart meters:
- Time-of-use tariffs, which are aligned to the cost of energy production. For example, Octopus Tracker (https://octopus.energy/smart/tracker/ https://octopus.energy/smart/tracker/) has an energy price set daily based on the wholesale rate. This is (on average) cheaper for customers, and cheaper for the supplier (because they don't need to spend as much on hedging).
- Demand shifting, so customers can be paid or get discounts for reducing electricity usage when the load on the grid is high. The UK did this over last winter, and led to a peak energy reduction of 188MW (about 10% of the UK's coal power generation capacity). There's a report at https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Consumer_flexibility_-_ready_to_replace_coal.pdf https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documen...
Both are ways of aligning the cost and environmental impact of energy with its price, and both become increasingly important as a higher percentage of energy is generated from variable renewable sources.
- jacquesm 3y agoThe big benefit is taxation: it allows for net-metering with the surplus sold at a low rate to be bought back at a much higher one. Obviously this was the plan all along...
- konschubert 3y agoYou don’t need a smart meter to do that that. Also, two things: * Electricity has a different price depending on the time of the day * grid fees are unfortunately scaled with consumption (instead of being scaled with max power draw)
- jacquesm 3y agoYou do because an old fashioned non-smart meter (even the multi-tariff ones) would only report the aggregate use or production.
- t0mas88 3y agoInteresting how "new and special" that seems in the UK with only daily prices? There are many providers offering hourly pricing in the Netherlands if you want to. I've seen some projects by enthusiasts to link those APIs to smart home systems and essentially use very cheap energy by timing their larger loads to the low-price moments. Especially on days with a lot of wind and solar energy.
- inigo 3y agoYeah, there are half-hourly pricing tariffs too, but I think that's a bit more niche - the added value is mostly if you have an electric car and your own solar panels.
- oliwarner 3y agoYou can also cut people off, or shunt them onto a pay-as-you-go tariff without installing another meter It's also another point of failure. I have a SMETS2 meter, and appreciate the time of day billing and better feed-in metering for my PV, but I'll not be at all surprised if this is hacked one day to cut millions of people off.
- MattPalmer1086 3y agoWhat would be the motivation to cut millions of households off from power? EDIT: do you mean the system would be hacked?
- oliwarner 3y agoYes, I mean hacked.
- MattPalmer1086 3y agoAlways a danger with connected systems. I believe that smart meters have many different controls to stop this happening, including digital signatures for important updates and also break glass recovery mechanisms. Not saying it's impossible, but I'm not losing any sleep over it.
- buggeryorkshire 3y agoDo you need to ask? It'd be hilarious and a badge of honour from the hackers pov. Note - I have a smets2 meter and think it's a good idea.