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A number of energy provides are now issues 'smart meters' to new or existing customers.
Obviously it makes a lot of sense for new meters to be of this type, rather than the old method of use forecasting and sending a man round with a van, But how useful is the information provied to the customer.
The reason I ask is having recently bought my first house having taken over the existing owners tariff (EON gas and elec) im now shopping around to make sure im on a good deal, and wondering if i should factor it in at all.
Ask the energy provider if they release the second by second data to the customer. At the moment it will make no difference to your bill. Have you got an electrical energy monitor? I found this very useful.
Be aware that some suppliers let you sign up to their "Smart Meter" tariff, then write to you a few weeks later telling you that "your meter is unsuitable"............. You do often get a energy monitor "free" with these deals, but I've found the free one I have to be spectacularly inaccurate on anything other than a purely resistive load. Some of the better energy monitors have power factor and power line voltage correction, so are considerably more accurate, I believe.
<blockquote><cite>Posted By: SteamyTea</cite>Ask the energy provider if they release the second by second data to the customer. At the moment it will make no difference to your bill. Have you got an electrical energy monitor? I found this very useful.</blockquote>
Hi, thanks for your reply.
I wrote a longer post origanally but left the window open, forum software timed out, and i lost it all!
I have a plug-through energy meter and from that and other information I havea good grasp of what uses what electrically, and have also taken readings of gas usage per minute for hotwater production and heating with the boiler at diffrent temps, as well as a number of weekly readings, from which I can produce graphs and the like. All in the main for my own interest, but also with the hope that the awareness may reduce overall consuption.
Second by second raw data would be my prefered, but i presume most also have a gui webbased interface, which may vary between supplier?
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