Energy Retailer Wants to Upgrade Me to Smart Meter

dammit on 28/03/2019 - 08:49

I recently moved and signed up with Click energy. I got a text shortly after from Spotless advanced metering saying they want to upgrade my meter to a new digital meter.

“We have been appointed by your energy retailer to upgrade your old electricity meter to a new digital meter.

During this upgrade, we need to briefly disconnect your power to ensure the job is done safely.”

Is there any pros/cons for this new digital meter as a consumer ? Should I let it happen?

I just have a single meter (ie no peak offpeak etc), I’m in Sydney nsw and my kitchen and hws is gas.

At some stage in the medium term I may want to add solar.

Electrical & Electronics

Related Stores

Click Energy
Click Energy

Comments

  • Speckled Jim on 29/03/2019 - 07:56
    +6

    Take Back Your Power is a documentary released a few years ago showing the US experience. It includes frank behind-the-scenes admissions regarding monetising usage patterns for targeted ads, among other possibilities.
    IIRC there's also a congressional committee hearing shown where everything is basically laid bare. The power company caught with their pants down.

    Can't say if local rollouts are the same types of meter that report every few seconds. The worry is the transients these things produce and the RF they emit.

  • boccos on 29/03/2019 - 07:59

    Contrary to horror stories on Utube, smart meters simply read power usage. If you are not near the meters constantly, then they are safe enough. Just make sure the new digital meter can send readings back to the Supplier automatically. This way there should be no-charge meter reading and no/little chance of errors.

  • Micko179 on 29/03/2019 - 09:58

    What Meter is it? If it's an EM1000E it's not 'smart'

    • freemoneyhunter on 29/03/2019 - 18:53
      -1

      EM1000E are smart meters they just are not remote which are much safer. Depending on billing requirements the meter reader will either read the accumulated reading manually off the display like a dumb meter or will probe the meter using the IR data port every quarter, the definition of smart meter is it can gather data within 10 minute intervals which happens when the meter is probed.

      • Micko179 on 30/03/2019 - 17:24

        IR Port on an EM1000?! riiiight!

  • [Deactivated] on 29/03/2019 - 10:52

    Why wouldn't you do it?

    Potentially you might need a new meter when you get solar which you may have to pay for, but the new digital meter would most likely by compatible with solar.

  • cashless on 29/03/2019 - 11:57
    +2

    Smart meters - doing your poor meter reader out of a job

  • FimpBARGAIN on 29/03/2019 - 12:55

    Looking into solar last year you should be able to stay with the current flat rate
    I know for us we would be much worse off with peak/offpeak

    you should be able to stay on the flat rate with the new meter, dont let them force you to change if you dont want to

  • freemoneyhunter on 29/03/2019 - 17:54

    Your bill will go up when you get a smart meter, the older meters with a metal disk in them run about 5% slower sometimes 10% or more. Through their pricing the smart meter needs access through the mobile phone network so there is quite a charge to have access through that. Meter Readers read about 250 houses a day or around 500-2000 apartments per day, it is very inexpensive to have a meter reader read your meter every quarter. Keep it simple, don't get a smart meter, if you get a smart meter they can disconnect your power remotely, at least with a regular meter, if you are behind on payments you can just put a lock on your meter box and they can't disconnect you although it is against the law to not have your meter accessible to the power company nothing likely will happen to you.

    • SBOB on 29/03/2019 - 18:51

      Through their pricing the smart meter needs access through the mobile phone network so there is quite a charge to have access through that

      An M2M Sim, with a couple of meg a month..
      For an account with 100s of thousands of Sims

      You're talking like a buck or 2 a month (if that)
      Way cheaper than paying someone to walk around and read your old spinning dial meter

    • tunzafun001 on 29/03/2019 - 21:25

      SA Police put out a flyer encouraging people to put a lock on their meter box to avoid alarms being easily disabled. Ive done this. Funny enough Amaysim emailed me saying spotless will be installing a smart meter and I need to provide access for 15 days, but no date provided. I rang spotless and got put through to…an answering machine. They never rang back.

      So, they are welcome to install it if they can get through locked gates, a locked meter Box and a large German Shephard.

      • kev98 on 30/03/2019 - 18:21

        Alarm boxes have a backup 12v battery so turning off power won’t really effect the alarm system.
        That said I do think it is a good idea to always have an approved padlock on meter box

  • Gekov on 29/03/2019 - 18:14
    +1

    Click Energy? Really?

    I gave up on them when I found out that they were inflating their electricity rates before giving FAKE "DISCOUNTS"! Thus I was effectively getting no discount at all.

    They also have a weird billing system which makes it next to impossible to check what discount you're actually getting.

    Make sure you do a thorough comparative check of their electricity rates and compare them with other suppliers.

    I'm currently getting a 30% discount with AGL and their rates are much LOWER than Click Energy's INFLATED RATES.

    Plus I can clearly see the discount on my bills which I can't with the ClickFraudsters.

    • tunzafun001 on 29/03/2019 - 21:29

      Click energies bills are so confusing that they can't understand them. I worked out (basically took me 2 days and a PhD in mathematics) they owed me $49. 2 call centre agents disagreed/ had no idea. A manager went through it and gave me $92.

    • snajper on 30/03/2019 - 08:24

      Heeehee people love bargains… 65c/kwh but you get 70% off….

    • MikeKulls on 31/03/2019 - 12:12

      They are not discounts, they are penalties for paying late. PowerShop admitted this to me over the phone. Their billing system was so amazingly convoluted that you could actually get the penalty even if you paid on time via direct debit. You would only get the discount if you went into the app and paid via the app.

      My new retailer is tango, they have a flat feed in price, flat feed out price and a daily rate. With 3 figures you can summarise your whole bill and literally calculate it on 1 line. Plus they have no discounts but come out to half the usage charge of powercrooks.

  • avoidfullprice on 29/03/2019 - 22:14

    Old meter which can also wind backwards (if you have solar) is gold. Otherwise no real benefit in keeping old meter.

    New meter can give you hourly usage, updated daily (few days lag). It can help you change usage pattern and save a few bucks.

  • bmerigan on 29/03/2019 - 22:30

    It's a new meter! What are you afraid of?

  • Lockdude on 29/03/2019 - 23:02
    +1

    The new meter should record half hourly electricity usage instead of just accumulating usage whenever you use it to be read every 3 months. This can be helpful to yourself to better understand how you use electricity, and when you're costing yourself the most.

    With this extra information from the meter, you can also be placed on a time of use (sometimes called flexible) tariff. This will charge you different off peak, shoulder and peak rates. Depending on how you use electricity, this could be worse for you. In theory, if you can shift usage off peak it could work out cheaper for you. It might be the case that your usage is already better off on a time of use tariff.

    But, you should be able to choose your tariff. By default you'll likely be put onto a time of use tariff but if you're unhappy with that, request that your retailer places you on a flat rate tariff instead (that is you pay the same amount for electricity no matter what time of day it is). You should get the choice :)

    Let me know if you have any questions!

  • conservative on 30/03/2019 - 09:36

    Whole world is moving towards smart meters.

    A lot of homes in Sydney have it already.

  • revelationx on 30/03/2019 - 17:04
    +1

    Weirdest thing happened. After the meter being changed to smart meter, my daily usage on average dropped 5kw. (I monitor my daily usage).

  • Poor Ass on 12/04/2019 - 10:14

    I know someone that works for Energex and they told me if approached don't upgrade to the new meters

    It will "cost you more" not too sure why but I trust his advice

  • dammit on 14/04/2019 - 15:59

    I questioned them and was told "We received a notification from Ausgrid that your electricity meter needs to be replaced as it has already reached the end of its life."

    Not sure if this is true or not. Anyway, I gave up stopping them and let them do it. They installed a Liberty 120. I can't quite figure out how to obtain the meter reading. It said press 9 and wait for IMP KW but that does not appear when I press 9.

    Also I am now figuring out that Click energy is quite confusing re they issue monthly instalment bills and then charge you the washup in the final month. To be honest I think it is aimed to confuse consumers and not be able to realise what discount they are actually getting.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join