advertisement


Smart meters......oh dear oh dear...why on earth did I bother!

MikeMA

MikeMA

pfm Member
I'm with Shell Energy and finally gave in to the idea of having smart meters installed on the basis that anything which makes monitoring and controlling consumption easier has to be a good thing, right? Well, not necessarily, or so it seems ....!

Shell's contractors, SMS installed the meters last week. The installation went smoothly, but within 24 hours the in-house monitor had lost contract with the meters and no longer functions, and I can see from my online account that the meters are not sending data back to Shell.

Looking around the Shell website I came across this gem of information:

We know some of our customers are currently experiencing technical issues with their SMETS2 smart meters.

Rest assured, your smart meter is still safe to use and is still working – it’s just not communicating with us for the moment.

We’re working hard to resolve these issues. If this has affected you, we appreciate your patience. We’ll be in touch as soon as we can to get the problem fixed.

In the meantime, please send us your meter readings by webchat or using our automated phone line: 0330 094 5800. We’re sorry but, for now, you can't submit your smart meter reading online or in the app.

Unfortunately, smart meters – and the network that connects them – are so complicated we can’t just resolve the issues by replacing your meter. This wouldn’t always fix the problem. Instead we’re working to find a solution to all the SMETS2 smart meter issues we’re facing.

I have taken this up with SMS and Shell and it's pretty clear that the people on the phones are overwhelmed and don't have a clue what's going on and just send you round in circles. Anyhow, having registered my complaint by phone and email I am now waiting to see what happens.

All this makes me wonder, if there are known problems with the technology, why are energy companies still pushing it and not waiting until it's fixed?

Anyhow, for what it's worth my advice to anyone thinking about smart meters is don't bother!

And thanks in advance, but I'm not in a good mood this morning and I'm really, really not in the least bit interested in hearing other people's stories about how wonderful and smart their meters are and how well they are working. :mad:
 
My old fashioned electronic meter packed up about a year ago, and I got a replacement, which of course was a smart meter. The meter installation was simple, and it gave the right flashing lights but wasn't talking to the electricity company. 'Don't worry, it can take up to 24 hours to connect' said the installer. Of course it didn't, and it took a while for a second installer to arrive and have another go at fixing it. He was told by the office that it must be a faulty meter, and so replaced it with another one, and of course that didn't help. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, it was of course a mis-configuration issue at the server end, and nothing to do with the installer and the meter.

Chances are, the installers and meters are rigorously tested given they are involved with installing and handling dangerous stuff. Meanwhile, the call centre staff who click some buttons to hook everything together are basically unskilled and don't have the knowledge or if they did, the access rights to diagnose and fix the systems at their end. So, i'd expect your issue will turn out to be a misconfiguration at the suppliers end, and they'll work it out and it'll at that point work flawlessly.

I'm somewhat disappointed with the information I get from the meter, i'd love to have a consumer unit that showed me load per circuit, or something like that. It would be interesting to see a better breakdown of where the load is, but it's a good start.
 
Same here with a Smart meter. SWMBO's getting an electric car, which meant increasing the main fuse to 100 amps, which our old meter couldn't cope with, so a Smart meter was prescribed by Octopus & fitted back in January. Same story - "It'll take a while to connect to our systems..." which, of course, it never did. I've exchanged umpteen e-mails with Octopus, & I'm just getting fobbed off. I did post my dissatisfaction on Octopus's Facebook page, which elicited a swift response, but it was the same old stuff.

Being a member of "Which?" legal services, I spoke to a helpful chap there, who told me to register an official complaint & if I get no joy after eight weeks to demand a "Letter of "Deadlock" which I can then take to the Power Ombudsman. The energy companies really do not like you doing this, & he reckoned they'll do all they can to prevent it. We shall see.
 
We had an older type smart meter and when we joined Octopus they told us that it wouldn't communicate with them. Asked for a new one and that was a year ago. Magically they now say they can ‘talk’ to the existing one.
 
Ours is fine, at this end it does much the same as the old E.On display so i can read out continuous or daily accumulated usage.

Only significant advantage is that it sends in readings so they have no excuse to overcharge.

If the reading isn't zero i work out why, usually oven on or lack of sunlight.

Solar panels ticking over at 2.85kW now so about 2 kW going into the hot water.

Plan is to get a new inverter for the wind turbine before the equinoctial gales and see whether a battery pack is worthwhile; looks to expensive at the moment.
 
I hate them when doing boiler services you have to gas rate the boiler and with some of these so called smart meters you would need a degree in engineering design to access the correct parameter bloody hopeless things.

The old analogue gas meters take 30 seconds to gas rate with some smart meters I just give up.

You would think that whoever designed these things would just simply add a button to press to gas rate but no that would be too easy.

And btw I’ve read reports of the smart meters actually registering gas usage when they’re in the meter installer’s van being transported to jobs.

I personally am never having one installed and that’s coming from someone who has been in the trade for 47 years.
 
Ellenor said:
I’m still refusing them. I still don’t get why they’re bothering with them as they don’t seem to be worth the trouble. It would be more economic to go back to employing people to go around reading them.
Click to expand...
This is my thinking. If Shell don't get this fixed pdq my next move will be to tell them I'm not faffing around sending readings on their b****y useless "live chat" system and they'd better send someone round to read the meter and then send me a paper bill if they want paying.
 
Last edited:
H20GNA said:
I have no problem with my old meters, I’m sad, I quite enjoy reading two meters monthly recording them and entering on website.

I can do my own calculations on readings.

Gary
Click to expand...
Exactly, neither did I. I'm a sad old git too and enjoyed keeping track of it all in a nice Excel spreadsheet with my own graphs and stuff, and now it's all ****** up!
 
I kept getting the “we must fit a smart meter etc” letters until I wrote telling them I was not having one unless and until it was obligatory and to stop harassing me with their letters.
 
Bob McC said:
I kept getting the “we must fit a smart meter etc” letters until I wrote telling them I was not having one unless and until it was obligatory and to stop harassing me with their letters.
Click to expand...
I agree. The pressure is coming from Ofgem, however, which has set targets for smart meter take up.

I suspect this is behind a lot of the issues reported here. The utility companies are only required to install them, not get them working properly.
 
I had one fitted through Bulb about 4 years ago and it did'nt give them any automated readings at all. After six months I checked and I had a huge credit balance but it was not getting my account paid? After much chasing they eventually got automated gas readings to work but electric has never despite repeated chasing so I give them a manual elec reading every few months and gave up on them fixing it. Late last year after they went in to administration I had a letter telling me the meter was'nt working!!!!! and someone would come and fix it....still waiting. What a joke. They, Smart and Bulb, are a waste of time. Waiting to see what happens when they are taken over.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I agree. The pressure is coming from Ofgem, however, which has set targets for smart meter take up.

I suspect this is behind a lot of the issues reported here. The utility companies are only required to install them, not get them working properly.
Click to expand...

I would imagine these companies are trembling at Ofgem's pressure
 
Good Afternoon All,

I think it would be fair to say that there are definitely "teething problems" with Smart meters. I think both bulb (OK now defunct) and Octopus were/ are quite pro-active on getting these implemented but from my own experience and those of others I've seen on both the bulb and Octopus forums the roll-out is fraught with technical challenges and it does seem somewhat unfair that suppliers like bulb/ Octopus get lumbered with significant overheads in terms of manpower because systems in place don't function as intended.

My original Smart meter was fitted by bulb in March 2020 and it worked from Day One and even survived the change over to Octopus some 4 months later. The issue for me came when, as a part a programme to replace certain models of L&G meters where PowerWalls were installed (some installs had erratic meter readings due to software in the meter I believe) and the installer of the replacement meter went off site with the meter not communicating properly (they were there 5hrs).

I have a lot of time for Octopus but after patiently communicating for 3 months I decide it was time to communicate with the Ombudsman/ Greg Jackson (on the forum you are 'invited' to copy the boss in "in extremis") and things did start moving. It still took 2 1/2 months but once the matter had worked its way up the Octopus management tree even the meter install person was actually re-directed to my house from the work he was due to do that day (apologies to whoever got put on the back burner that day).

Things are working properly now. The IHD functions, the Hildebrand Glow meter works, the Octopus watch app. works including the export side.

Currently no issues - :rolleyes:

Regards

Richard
 
Octopus emailed to tell me my meters were very old and need to be changed to smart.
Left a few days and clicked to say Yes
Not able to fit me in
Email if urgent
I'll wait
 
Chap i look after had smart meters that packed up when energy co went bust .no way of reading them .eventually after a long struggle got shell to replace and been ok so far
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top