I've got two smart meters attached to this house. The gas meter has to communicate via the electric meter. Don't ask me why.
I was given a small consumer unit to read how much electricity and gas I was consuming. It has NEVER worked. We've lived here six years and had three different suppliers. My last supplier managed to get the electricity readings to work. And I can get better rates for overnight charging of my electric car.
It is still a scandal that the government and the electricity distributors said that smart meters were the way ahead and ploughed billions into a system that doesn't work. I should tell Martin Lewis, I suppose.
A recent example. I send in my electricity and gas readings as well. Quarterly. I agree I shouldn't need to send in the electricity readings, but I do because its simple enough as I have to take monthly photos of the gas meter numbers and the other box is adjacent.
A few weeks ago I was given a surprise bill. I owed a further £1,300 on top of the amount I'd been paying. Now I'd never throttled back the standing payments based upon my own estimates of the expected bills. Lucky for me because I could just cough up the extra payment.
I've asked why and been told that the system needed to catch up with its billing. Or something like that. I don't properly understand and I suppose I'll spend a whole day with spreadsheets and a computer trying to work out what has been happening.
They spent £13.8 billion on this rollout. So far only 57% of houses have smart meters. By March 2023 around 9% didn't work. Despite assurances completion by end 2022, they also don't retain smart function when switching suppliers. Half a million may never work . And 37% of smart meter users claim an issue such as no automatic readings (me), inaccurate bills(me) and the in home display not showing readings (me). The snappily titled Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) say this is an overstatement of the position.
Not for me it isn't. Another example of a busted Britain.
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