Just had a message from my electricity provider that they will be installing a smart meter on my house. I haven't requested this or know much about them.
What does the ozbargain community think? Which meter is better, traditional or smart and why? Are there any benefits of having the older meter?
Cheers
You did apologies my bad. Dam elec providers got me in a rage over demand supply charges
@knobbs: not sure where you are but for me…… for example for AGL and Origin there is no peak demand surcharge just regular peak rate but if you go with Ovo they stack the demand on top of the peak
in saying that perhaps the regular peak rate in AGL and Origin is higher than the demand so maybe it's the same
I'm in Qld too with AGL
33.6c a kw for general use
8c a kw 12am to 6am
$1.3866 a day for supply charge
but I also get 44c a kw for solar feed in (old PV agreement)
what about you?
I changed to Powershop, taking advantage of a deal posted in Ozbargain.
As soon as I switched to them they told me that my old analogue meter was 'faulty' and needed to be changed. (The previous retailer never mentioned anything about this.) They then had the nerve to insist that I needed to pay $800 for a network outage which was required by the distributor in order to change the meter. I told them no, I did not want to change the meter and certainly would not be paying them for the privilege of doing so.
About a month later, they emailed me again with the exact same thing, insisting I pay $800 for a network outage. I again said, 'no' and they gave up. However, they then tried to charge me a $120 "wasted visit" fee because they could not successfully change the meter, even though I never requested that the meter be changed in the first place. After I complained they refunded the fee.
That was about a year ago and the old analogue meter continues to work just fine.
dodgy. did powershop go out of business?
No I’m with them lol
something with a similair name went out of business. It was Power Club. I get them confused.
Which meter is better, traditional or smart and why? Are there any benefits of having the older meter?
The smart meter allows “time of use” plans - the cost of electricity changes throughout the day. Depending on your usage pattern, you may find one of these cheaper than your current plan.
The trouble is, unless you already know exactly how much and when you’re using power, it can be difficult to determine your usage patterns before deciding to switch to a time of use plan at the same time as changing the meter type. You can have your own meter installed that will export data for your own analysis, I did this before I got a smart meter to determine the viability of a solar system.
Some people have reported that the retailer switched their plan at the time of install, this didn’t happen to me, in any case the Energymadeeasy.gov.au website to compare plans has filters for fixed tariffs, time of use, etc.
Personally, I changed about 5 years ago during a solar install, and kept the same tariffs.
Hilariously they did get the two measures mixed up, so my export was counting as usage and my usage was counting as export, it was a glorious bill that quarter but I called them and got it fixed.
As others have pointed out, if your retailer supports it, with a smart meter you can drill down into your usage and see day by day and hour by hour how much you’ve used. They also don’t require access to the property any more to get accurate readings. The meter is also arguably easier to read by yourself, it has an LCD display with the usage as numbers, rather than dials.
but I called them and got it fixed.
why?
My sense of superiority drives me to correct things when they’re wrong… Also by doing the right thing, I can offset it by doing the wrong thing somewhere else, and my karma will be neutral.
Jokes aside, although there is legislation to restrict the timeframe that they can claim money due to their own billing error, I just kinda felt it was stealing when I discovered it. I wish I was blissfully unaware.
Depending on what electricity plan you go with you can get charged on time of use, or just a flat rate. I think that just depends who you go with and what the details of their plan are. The energy company can read your meter remotely, they don't need to come to your house.
If you have enough solar, the smart meter tells them how much you are putting back into the grid, so its presence can be in your favour.
There are solar panels installed on houses that don't have a smart meter?
At the very least I'd expect 2 meters. 1 infeed and one outfeed
At least in NSW you can get solar panels installed before you have a smart meter, but once the power company knows you have solar, a countdown begins for them to send an electrician to install one.
I let them install the smart meter mainly because EnergyAustralia claimed it often couldn't be read, the reason, unknown. There's no fence or dogs and the meter is visible from the street.
I may have screwed myself with future pricing, but I believe the Queensland government prevents being forced onto new tariffs for two years after installation.
Resist the upgrade for as long as possible. With the good old spinning disk and mechanical dials meters you will get to keep single price tariff metering, which is very likely a better deal.
I've lived in a house where we were forced to switch the meters about 16 months ago. At the time they promised that nothing would change and that we would continue receive the same pricing. It only took 3 months before our old rates became "unavailable" and we had to be migrated to another plan to match the new tariff that Ausgrid use for smart meters. This resulted in about a 30% increase in total bill.
I've moved since and am again on a vintage mechanical meter with a single rate and a lower bill. I hope that they won't try to change the meters here, but if they do, I'll insist I want to be migrated to a non-demand tariff.
Smart meter has been ideal for me. We have a time of use plan where off peak is all times apart from 4pm-8pm weekdays. This means 90% of our bill is at the low rate. There's no way I'd switch back to a single rate plan. Time of use and demand tariffs are two different things - demand tariffs can increase the cost significantly if you don't understand the mechanics of how it's measured and end up drawing a lot of power at the same time.
too many horror stories from 'smart' meters - pensioners with previously low bills suddenly getting huge bills of thousands of dollars after smart meter installation
this 'demand' thing about if you use a kettle and heater at the same time so your peak momentary rate is XXkW, they then apply this to your bill as a much higher rate of something - scam city I reckon !
and they are so opaque - computer-controlled - that the average old person might never be able to work out how they work or how to change anything
AFAIK they benefit only the companies - as an error or huge bill complaint can be dealt with as 'computer says so it must be true'
I'm sticking as long as I can with the old rotating disk type - read the number - if wrong number on my bill, I call them and they adjust accordingly - simples.
too many horror stories from 'smart' meters - pensioners with previously low bills suddenly getting huge bills of thousands of dollars after smart meter installation
Is this because they had their bills estimated for years. Then the physical meter was read during the crossover?
You can call them up and give them the meter reading over the phone. Or just blindly pay for years on end.
No it isn't because of estimated bills. They can not estimate for years. In NSW, at least, there must be at least one actual meter reading per year. The increases are because of a switch from single tariff to demand tariff. It doesn't matter if you call them, if you email them, if they download the data or if they send around a person to read the meter. It is pricing structure dictated by distributor tariff and retailer plan that result in the major price swing.
theres something else happening. "thousands" sounds unbelievable for a pensioner.
A few months back there is a redditor who created a script to work out if it was better convert your plan to the day/night plan to save money. You just export your hourly data into the spreadsheet. For me, it was marginal.
My electricity bill is around $200/quarter. So i find it hard to believe a pensioner is getting a bill costing them thousands more.
@Davo1111: I'm not a pensioner, but all my appliances are electric, except for instantaneous gas hot water. Bills are around $700 ~ $800 per quarter.
Previously I lived in a house that was all electric, including CL2 water. The bills there were around $900 per quarter. At the previous house the meters were changed and I was on the transitional tariff, then TOU. I chose a retailer that provided a single rate plan, even though technically the tariff was TOU.
I've built my own spreadsheet to calculate the costs of various plans and tariffs based on the smart meter usage data. I've done many comparisons in the space of about 14 months. Single rate was the cheapest, some of the better TOU plans were about $100 ~ $200 per quarter more. Demand was about double the cost. All those calculations were best case scenario as they assumed that the hot water system would only run at t he cheapest available rate.
So, I have hard data to back up my claims. I also think that my usage patterns are very typical of most Australian households, perhaps with the exception that I also work from home full-time, whereas the rest of the family go to school/work place during week days.
So, thousands is absolutely not unbelievable for a pensioner that cooks and bakes and puts the kettle on and has electric hot water. Or dog forbid - instantaneous electric hot water! Pensioners with electric bar heaters will pay big bucks in winter.
keep the old and use a magnet
Lol. A lot of fear mongering here.
It's a meter that allows them to accurately get electricity readings without entering your property.
Depending on the rate you might be pushed onto another plan. In my state that's not the case.
I like it because I can see my exact energy usage online. And I can correlate it when I'm wfh.
You are right, the smart meters are not a problem and are a good tool. However, the problem is that smart meters (in most places) come with a mandatory change in tariff and the new tariffs are more expensive for a majority of users. If you have batteries that can take up the slack and cover all your peak demand needs, then you might be OK. That's because the new meters enable the distributor and retailer to charge you more at some times with a TOU tariff or charge you a surcharge, with a demand tariff. If you don't have a smart meter then the only option you have is to charge you using a single rate tariff for each meter you have. In most cases that will be one or two meters. One meter for any-time usage, the second (optional) meter for controlled load 1 or 2, also known as off-peak. In terms of cost for a typical household that uses appliances such as electric ovens, induction stoves, microwaves and kettles, single tariff is best, TOU is the middle ground and demand tariff is the most expensive.
tl;dr: Smart meters enable pricing structures that, for most consumers, end up costing more.
didn't I state that I don't have a battery and I still save 30-40%
everything that was high load done during the day and night peak times are now done during 12am-6am
how would you know I didn't save 30-40%