Smart Meter Time

Suitably redacted....

I've probably missed a trick here. I got a message a while back offering a smart meter for my electricity and I said yes. I didn't know that the energy companies were still installing the "old new technology" smart meters. According to what I'd read a while back, by this time everyone would be getting the new type, but for some reason (perhaps because it makes it harder to change energy suppliers without losing meter "smartness") the old-new meters are still being rolled out. And I've ended up with one.

It seems typical of the way that things are presently working in this country that an initiative that is supposed to bring us to the forefront of energy management has been sabotaged right from the start by short sighted decision making driven by commercial interests. Not that I'm particularly worried. The way I see it, if I'm in the 9 million who've got the old meters there's a lot of incentive for companies to make us happy in the future.

I reckon it's quite possible that the potential of the second generation of meters will never be realised because nobody will bother implementing the back end services to make them work. They'll just claim that there aren't enough of them out there to make it worthwhile. Yes, that is very cynical. And probably right. And anyway, the firmware in my meter is upgradeable......

Anyhoo, the meter is now in place and beaming my electricity usage to a remarkably cheap looking device that lets me see what happens when I use the kettle. It is supposed to motivate me to save power, but the first thing I wanted to find out was how far into the red I could send the readout by turning things on.....