Smart Meter, Yae or Nae?

[jfman]

You (they) seem to have a lot of faith in the private sector to not utilise the opportunity to price gouge for demand that cannot be moved around - being cold in winter - under the guise of dynamic pricing.

“Sorry folks the it wasn’t us it was the algorithm”.

Whether society at large could benefit from this is irrelevant to me anyway, I consume less than the average for electricity and gas. My usage is almost entirely inconsequential. If there’s efficiencies to be had - and presumably money to be saved - that needs to reach the pockets of end users and not shareholders.

In the absence of anything concrete they can keep threatening to pap me onto the variable tariff - which on 1st April is cheaper than my fix (until July) anyway.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by jfman

You (they) seem to have a lot of faith in the private sector to not utilise the opportunity to price gouge for demand that cannot be moved around - being cold in winter - under the guise of dynamic pricing.

“Sorry folks the it wasn’t us it was the algorithm”.

Whether society at large could benefit from this is irrelevant to me anyway, I consume less than the average for electricity and gas. My usage is almost entirely inconsequential. If there’s efficiencies to be had - and presumably money to be saved - that needs to reach the pockets of end users and not shareholders.

In the absence of anything concrete they can keep threatening to pap me onto the variable tariff - which on 1st April is cheaper than my fix (until July) anyway.

No, I am with you on this. The "private" energy sector will absolutely try and roger the consumer. OFGEM is useless, in fact you might think they are actually employees of the Energy companies. The only hope is for a new Government to bring the energy sector back into public ownership and restructure it for the long term benefit of the consumers and the country. Let's see ...

[jfman]

So if my only hope is that a British government develop a spine against the practices of cartels in the “competitive” privatised industries I’ll hang onto my dumb meter for now.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by jfman

So if my only hope is that a British government develop a spine against the practices of cartels in the “competitive” privatised I’ll hang onto my dumb meter for now.

Yet you can save a lot of money while you wait

[jfman]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Yet you can save a lot of money while you wait

It’s a bad investment to save small change now to lose more later when fully dynamic pricing is implemented.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by jfman

So if my only hope is that a British government develop a spine against the practices of cartels in the “competitive” privatised industries I’ll hang onto my dumb meter for now.

Just been reading that, if Labour win the General Election, they aren't going to relationalise the energy companies, but will create a people's energy company that puts customers first.

People would be free to choose which they want to go with.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by jfman

It’s a bad investment to save small change now to lose more later when fully dynamic pricing is implemented.

I personally do not consider £1000+ small change, YMMV

[jfman]

Originally Posted by ianch99

I personally do not consider £1000+ small change, YMMV

Would be interested to know what subset of the population would be in a position to save that amount considering the average is £1600 per year.

Edge cases may do so. However fundamentally these poorly regulated companies have responsibilities to their shareholders.

[Ms NTL]

Originally Posted by jfman

Would be interested to know what subset of the population would be in a position to save that amount considering the average is £1600 per year.

Edge cases may do so. However fundamentally these poorly regulated companies have responsibilities to their shareholders.

£4k in my case. Large house, with very large rooms, several out buildings. I run two 33KW boilers and 4 gas fires.

Leccy was free or almost free, at the weekend or negative (except 4-7pm)

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by jfman

Would be interested to know what subset of the population would be in a position to save that amount considering the average is £1600 per year.

Edge cases may do so. However fundamentally these poorly regulated companies have responsibilities to their shareholders.

Not really an edge case: 3-bed semi with Combi Gas boiler. Our savings over the last year are approx 40% so we think this is worth having.

Don't forget that Octopus do make a profit on the smart tariffs we are on.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Not really an edge case: 3-bed semi with Combi Gas boiler. Our savings over the last year are approx 40% so we think this is worth having.

Don't forget that Octopus do make a profit on the smart tariffs we are on.

And how much profit would octopus make if everyone switched?

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by jfman

And how much profit would octopus make if everyone switched?

Considering the ridiculous profits the energy companies make I'm sire they'll still make plenty.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by jfman

And how much profit would octopus make if everyone switched?

No idea but given that the sector should be in public ownership anyway, I don't really care. I think they (successfully) rely on most people being too scared/lazy/unaware to switch to the smart tariffs to make the point moot.

[Ms NTL]

Originally Posted by jfman

And how much profit would octopus make if everyone switched?

In the case of leccy is 100% profit

The formula is public

Your unit rate calculation
The unit rate charge (in pence per kilowatt-hour) for a given half-hour period is:

min(2.1 x W + P, 95.23)
where:

2.1 is a coefficient that includes our distribution costs
W is the wholesale cost of electricity for that period (in pence per kilowatt-hour)
P has value 12.00 between 4pm and 7pm but is zero otherwise.
95.23 is chosen to ensure the price is capped at 100p/kWh once VAT is added.

I will try to find the gas formula.

Gas unit charge: (W * 0.03604) + 1.4025 p per kWh

[Rillington]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Just been reading that, if Labour win the General Election, they aren't going to relationalise the energy companies, but will create a people's energy company that puts customers first.

People would be free to choose which they want to go with.

The only thing they have said they will renationalise is the railways, doing so gradually by bringing railways back in-house as each contract expires.

---------- Post added at 11:57 ---------- Previous post was at 11:55 ----------

I think at some point we will all be forced to go 'smart' but hopefully this will be a long way off as clearly they don't work well enough to force this on every household and business across the country.