Talk to me about... Energy Tariffs.

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Post reported.
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Here are some to clutch.

We're all glad that someone is thinking of the children.
Unfortunately we're in a lesser of two evils situation, the oil giants or the rare earth mineral miners.
True dat
unfortunately lion is about our best option right now.
As true as dat is, the provenance of the wherewithal should not escape scrutiny.
As for the original incentives, if you had the money back then you'd be getting 60p/kWh generated right now!
and that's part again of what i was trying to put across - the idea that you'll be making money from 'feeding in' if you invest now is an aspect that has gone. Not that it should be any sort of argument against adopting, obvs.

As we round into a more agreeable cycle of our orbit, we're using what we're making, and making a bit from what we're not. Not a lot to be said on the con side.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
U means the British Gas app? I can’t have an in home display as the signal too bad here
If the phone signal was the issue then your meter readings would never get to BG? Inside your house the display usually uses zigbee (like bluetooth) to talk to the meter, this is independent of the meter talking to the network. Many people have displays that work on meters that don't, and vice versa.

Setting up the IHD will be part of the install, I'd be amazed if you didn't get one this time as it's the latest meter, but then it's BG so...
Yeah they used Zigbee for SMETS1 too, the difference with SMETS2 is that utility providers have to allow you to connect stuff to the HAN whereas they didn’t with SMETS1

Engineer probably didn’t have a clue tbh, they come and attach wires, they don’t necessarily understand the tech.
Engineer came , didn’t fit new smart meters as he said they wouldn’t work because of the crap signal 🤦‍♀️🫤 I give up
No idea 🤷‍♀️ I would have assumed that British Gas would have suggested something … actually no… it’s British Gas 🤣
We had smart meters fitted by British Gas in our Stafford house years ago , and given a home display. Display never worked on either electric or gas. The electric meter on the back outside wall was sending readings to them. But the gas meter was right under the stairs and BG said the Vodaphone signal wasn't reaching it and not sending readings . It never worked all the years after that while we were there. Had to keep crawling under the stairs to read it.
Several BG engineers later, we were told there was to be a 'new' type of smart meter being rolled out soon , so told to hang on and they'd install one of them. Never heard any more & gave up trying.

Went through all the process of applying for a BG smart meter in September here in this new house. The 'you will get a call back from another department within a fortnight ' didn't happen so we are just taking weekly readings for ourselves to track cost , and sending our own readings every couple of months to them. My calculations are all matching up with theirs so sticking to that. Bit easier in this house with both meters outside the back door ( Had enough problems with the water & internet sagas. While the energy meters are working fine, we are leaving well alone!)
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
and that's part again of what i was trying to put across - the idea that you'll be making money from 'feeding in' if you invest now is an aspect that has gone. Not that it should be any sort of argument against adopting, obvs.

As we round into a more agreeable cycle of our orbit, we're using what we're making, and making a bit from what we're not. Not a lot to be said on the con siside.
I know people making over a grand a year, plus free electricity, but that ship sailed a long time ago!

On a good day we make about £2 tops, that will happen for maybe 2 or 3 months of the year at the very most. We'll not achieve a 0 bill overall, not by any stretch, but by being a rate tart and swapping between rates for summer and winter we should be able to get it to a few hundred pounds. Which sounds great, but the equipment was expensive so any savings are far in the future.

We're just happy to have much lower ongoing bills, between this and the tracker gas tariff we're now back to where we were 2 years ago...
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Not a bad month, the solar repayments more than covered our grid usage and due to tracker tariff our gas too

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Incidentally tracker tariff is back in July, telling people now they'll switch loads on the 1st, if anyone is interested. Current gas price still under 4p.
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
Just had the March to June quarterly bill from Eon - £3,842 - so not too much really.

Yes it‘s wrong but I have had to send photos of the meter readings to show that the meter reader has screwed up. He has guessed the figures because the LCD display is broken and not showing all the figures correctly.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Just had the March to June quarterly bill from Eon - £3,842 - so not too much really.

Yes it‘s wrong but I have had to send photos of the meter readings to show that the meter reader has screwed up. He has guessed the figures because the LCD display is broken and not showing all the figures correctly.
One benefit of smart meters I guess, not seen a meter reader in ages!
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
I’m having to have one fitted due to the broken one I have now. Eon don’t supply any other type of meter unfortunately.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I’m having to have one fitted due to the broken one I have now. Eon don’t supply any other type of meter unfortunately.
Nobody will, don't think they're even made? They'll install a smart one and if it can't talk to the DCC it's no worse than a dumb one anyway
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Tariffs are changing on July 1st, octopus flux is down 10-15% depending on price band. The same goes for export, although closer to £ value than % so in real terms they're down more. Still nearly 20p/kWh though and 30p at peak
 

joshua

Well-Known Forumite
Had both meters replaced as the original ones were gen 3g, the BG chap had to try 3 electric meters before getting it to connect to the network.
Turns out that the company who supplies BG are sending out "refurbished" units that have not been cleared of previous customers data so can't be connected.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Had both meters replaced as the original ones were gen 3g, the BG chap had to try 3 electric meters before getting it to connect to the network.
Turns out that the company who supplies BG are sending out "refurbished" units that have not been cleared of previous customers data so can't be connected.
All anecdotal as I don't know the people, but someone on a FB group recently had loads of issues because their new meter started at several thousand kWh and they were billed from 0. That was a BG swapover too.

Octopus told me they rent meters, and if they pull one that isn't faulty they have to pay out the entire lease, so I guess these are units that weren't really faulty that BG pulled and they are recirculating them. I'm not sure they do 'reset' as such though, I thought they just needed to register the opening meter reading. The mad bit? It's a smart meter, it tells you the date/time/reading as you commission it so the 7k units in 30 mins should have been easily identified at the DCC end and never been an issue for a customer.
 
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