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Changing energy suppliers for both Electric and Gas in UK


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Thanks for the reply, the ocd part I hadn’t considered. I’m not sure how by having a smart meter I’m contributing to the companies profit seeing as it was installed free, and I’m actually using less of their product. 😂

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5 minutes ago, Airgunner said:

Thanks for the reply, the ocd part I hadn’t considered. I’m not sure how by having a smart meter I’m contributing to the companies profit seeing as it was installed free, and I’m actually using less of their product. 😂

It was not installed free, you and everybody else pays for the cost in their bills as with the cost of going green with wind turbines etc. The companies no longer employ an army of meter readers etc which must be a big saving but, I have not seen any savings passed on to the customer. Also from what I understand alot of these meters for various reasons do not work as required and some have shut the supply off or even caught fire.

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7 minutes ago, Airgunner said:

I’m not sure how by having a smart meter I’m contributing to the companies profit seeing as it was installed free, and I’m actually using less of their product

Well perhaps more accurately reducing their costs with regard to collecting and managing usage data - also helps them with load balancing, grid management etc. I'm not saying this isn't good stuff, but companies are not installing smart meters out of the goodness of their hearts - to my mind, smartmeters are like going paperless with bills ... yes everyone benefits, but the company benefits more by making savings. With paperless billing there is some sort of minimal discount for doing so. But this is not the case for smart meters. 

 

Its all part and parcel of the ever increasing amount of work we do (knowingly or unknowingly) for companies, if only by providing them with data.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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Remember a smart meter is a two way street. It allows the supplier to monitor your usage at peak times, with the potential to bill you at a variable rate.

As has been admitted, it also allows your supply to be interrupted remotely. And remember, it is always the end user who pays for everything.  Equipment, wages, taxes - it is all passed on to the consumer.

If you go for a high capacity home charger for an electric vehicle, you must have a smart meter installed.

 

Ask yourself one question. When was the last time a government initiative worked in your favour?

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10 hours ago, Truro Model Builder said:

I can recommend to anyone not to bother signing up with Together Energy. In fact, run very fast in the other direction. Complete and utter bunch of incompetents. Worst decision we ever made to go with them.

I would agree 100% with you, just totally useless and incapable. I still cant get a refund from them.

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On 3/24/2021 at 8:58 PM, bentwaters81tfw said:

Remember a smart meter is a two way street. It allows the supplier to monitor your usage at peak times, with the potential to bill you at a variable rate.

As has been admitted, it also allows your supply to be interrupted remotely. And remember, it is always the end user who pays for everything.  Equipment, wages, taxes - it is all passed on to the consumer.

If you go for a high capacity home charger for an electric vehicle, you must have a smart meter installed.

 

Ask yourself one question. When was the last time a government initiative worked in your favour?


Addressing your first point, of course it’s a two way street, I’m happy with that, and of course it allows my supplier to monitor my peak rate usage, but it doesn’t allow my supplier to bill me at a variable rate because my contract doesn’t allow that.

 

As for supplies being interrupted remotely, that’s the first time I’ve heard of that, ever. Of course the end user pays for everything, it’s no different with a tin of beans from Tesco, that’s how capitalism works. As long as I get a product I want at a price I’m prepared to pay, I’m happy. As smart meter helps me do this because I can accurately monitor what I am using easily, and I know by sending fortnightly reading I’m being billed accurately too. As for an electric vehicle, until battery performance mirrors the mileages I get with diesel, not going to happen. 
 

Addressing your last point, government initiatives only suit the government, always have, always will and nothing you or I do at the ballot box will ever change that. 

Edited by Airgunner
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And as I guessed, now that BG have found out I am switching from BG to Octopus Energy ... faster than the speed of light, BG want to talk to me now ... took me 2.5 hrs and more to get no answer last week, calling to their overseas call centre I mentioned at start of thread, they want to call me if I let them, any-time and then another text to offer discounts to keep me ... had enough of BG though, 5 or 6 years was enough ... a rolling stone gathers no moss :)

Heard good things about Octopus.

Airgunner mate, understand your anxiety with smart meters, since you have one installed you will want it to succeed, hope it does for you too mate, but please check its calibration date (note it down somewhere safe) I guess most are fine, for me and as old school, happier to call in meter reads and be billed accurately, smart meters have had many compatibility problems and especially when changing suppliers, they all want to tie you in somehow.

At another level and no more mention of capitalism please, in the good old days pre Covid, real people would look at your meters, inside and out, and that was a good reliable argument to Energy company's when in dispute where folk if things got debatory, they came and saw and inspected, folk were employed it helped the economy too having more folk employed, we might have thought they were pests, but they were minor well behaviour pests who just wanted to verify meter reads for company and me ... what could go wrong?

Well Smart meter's do go wrong, its machines after all, they will go out of calibration and its a hassle to check up on too, but if we give in to them now, it just means longer fights for bills to be sorted.

The worse argument I heard about smart meters though is ... most of them are older gen ones, even the second gen ones, they dont want us to swap to better suppliers, hassle city, nobody needs that.

There is no such thing as a free lunch or a free smart metre, someone else is coining in and its not us.

 

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https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5607490/smart-meters-can-switch-off-your-electricity-supply

Have a look at British Gas T&Cs for smart meters. They explain in detail how then can remotely disconnect your supply. I guess all the other suppliers will be the same. I can't think of a single benefit for smart meters, but I can think of several disadvantages. I won't be getting one, and I'd advise everyone else to take the same stance.

I understand we are all good energy paying people, but sometimes, even the best of us can hit hard hard times, smart meters will have no sympathy, no empathy and no Human contact, we are not important to them, our money is ... they will switch you off in heart beat and because of smart meters and less call centre staff ... good luck getting through to them.

Changing suppliers with smart meters between suppliers is still a nightmare, it should not be this way.

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Asked many times when they can make an appointment to fit my smart meter, always the same answer I don't want one.Quite happy sending my meter readings in when asked.

 

And another thumbs up for Avro, they came in cheaper when my first contract with them expired, thats a first as the other big ones BG/Npower I was with always wanted more, and sometimes more before the contract had expired even though it was supposed to be a fixed rate term.

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As I live in a village with no gas supply, we're all electric with storage heating, we fitted solar panels when we moved in 7 years ago and they've paid for themselves now but obviously during the long winter days we don't generate much so pull from the grid quite a bit. Using Economy 7 and not having dual fuel limits our choices of supplier but I've just switched from Bulb (who are putting their prices up in April) to PFP Energy, so any experiences with them would be appreciated, they seem to be in favour with the MSE website at the moment so fingers crossed. The switch seems painless so far.

We used to be with Octopus and had no complaints, communication etc was good but their Economy 7 tariffs rose so we had to move.

I'm signed up with Labrador for tariff watches but like all switching sites they don't offer all companies, also any of these switching sites don't make a point of putting the various tariffs in plain sight, you have to dig which I find annoying. I know what I'm paying for peak, off peak and daily charge at the moment so just want to see what each company is offering, not going by some pie in the sky "average usage" quote which bears no relation to reality. 

As we push quite a bit from the solar back to the grid on sunny days I'm considering battery storage so I'm looking at a Tesla Powerwall, mind you you can buy quite a bit of 'lecky for what they cost! So if anybody has practical experience of this I'm all ears.

We could have fitted an oil fired wet system when we moved in but I wasn't comfortable with oil burning, I looked at air source heat pumps which would require a wet system too but my missus thought it was too noisy and I'm too far in now to go back but that might have been a better option over the longer term.

 

Dave

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I have first generation smart meters that stopped working when I was switched to a new supplier when the original one went bust. They've now had a software update which means most of their functionality has been restored, although my gas history isn't displaying on my inhouse display.

 

I don't think they are an evil conspiracy, but they have been oversold to domestic users. The only near certain benefit is timely accurate billing, but they will save you no energy at all without you as the home owner doing something in the way you use utilities - either changing equipment for more efficient types or by changing your behaviour. In my case chivvying the kids to switch things off. Having sight of real-time and historic energy use does tend to make you think about what you switch on. I now don't use the gas fire to heat the lounge except when guests are round and it's encouraged me to change all lights for low energy types.

So a minor benefit.

Once we've all got electric vehicles and heat-pumps expect them to be compulsory as demand pricing of electricity will probably be necessary to stop the grid collapsing under the load.

Edited by 3DStewart
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There maybe some advantage to suppliers if smart meters are fitted, but it is being driven by the potential fines that the government can apply if smart meter installation targets are missed.

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On 3/28/2021 at 6:40 PM, 3DStewart said:



Once we've all got electric vehicles and heat-pumps expect them to be compulsory as demand pricing of electricity will probably be necessary to stop the grid collapsing under the load.

I think we are many many years away from that, no matter what Government that's in power at the time say.

They need to be upping the build of electrical generating capacity and charging points before they make claims that they know they can't keep.

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44 minutes ago, colin said:

I think we are many many years away from that, no matter what Government that's in power at the time say.

 

I agree, I think the Government's in lala land if they think we'll have phased out petrol cars by 2030.  It is possible, but not without relenting national focus and making it the primary economic policy before anything else. I don't think that is going to happen. Just eight and three quarter years, and ticking down.

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Watching Dr Indra (ex GM Europe) on you tube. Spells out why electric and Hydrogen cars will not happen. Hang on to your ICE cars, synthetic fuels are much more likely.

China are developing ultra low emission high fuel efficiency ICE engines right now.

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