The Energy and Climate Change Committee published its thoughts on energy companies and pricing today which the BBC has concentrated on….but the ECCC also released its latest publications on smart metering.…they will cost us £12 billion…but save us £18 billion….because that’s the way government, publicly funded ,computer projects always work…they always come in under budget and save us money…don’t they?
The BBC has been running quite a few studies looking at the introduction of smart meters.
But one thing it hasn’t told us is this:
Smart meters will be rolled out as standard across the country by 2020.
But there will not be a legal obligation on individuals to have one.
Energy companies will be required to install smart meters and take all reasonable steps to reach everyone. However, we do not expect energy companies to take legal action to fit a smart meter if they cannot get the householder’s co-operation.
That came from the government’s own information and advice site on smart meters.
Nothing to do with BBC bias but it would have been nice to be told such a relevant thing when these meters are so controversial….just a failure to report the basic, essential facts.
The meters are a security threat, not just to your own data but to the national grid….apart from that they are unlikely to reduce your energy use….you may switch using energy at peak times for cheaper periods…but that doesn’t reduce overall energy consumption.
This is how to successfully reduce energy use:
If you really want to reduce energy consumption, extreme social pressure is the way to do it, says Prof Anderson.
A “pervasive surveillance structure” for society with a public hall of shame, singling out worst offending households to ridicule, would work, says Prof Anderson. “But the implications for social liberties are appalling.”
All made possible by the smart meter recording your every move.
How about Smart meters for watching BBC TV? As in, if you watch a program on the BBC you pay for it and if you don’t ever watch the BBC you don’t pay anything to them? This would replace the TV License. What do you say, Auntie, good idea or what?
I would pay *WELL* over the odds to have such a meter fitted!
In the meantime, I will go on paying a very inflated license fee for the (very) rare occasions I switch on live TV, and even then it is not any BBC channels I watch.
The BBC wireless (radio for you younger ones) was always my preferred entertainment but now even that gets the ‘switch-off quickly’ treatment, especially at 18:30 most days, except for a few programmes on 4 Extra. Few and far between.
I have 2 Roberts 83i Internet radios in the house and the vast choice of stations means ‘Auntie’ is now a relic of an old man’s past.
(BTW, even though I have so many available stations, I am still looking for a truly independent, trustworthy source of radio news. By that description I mean as far removed from the likes of Humphrys/Naughtie as it is possible to get. Any suggestions, please?)
RATIONING and SURVEILLANCE
1) The policy was instituted by Ed Milliband as part of the overall Labour assault on the liberty of the individual [ amongst other things to use power as they see fit.]
2) Smart Meters enable remote access by third parties on a second by second basis permitting rationing, brown outs and intrusive surveillance. They will be used.
3) Smart meters will make prices much higher – they will permit a very complex tariff structure based on instantaneous demand levels – e.g. electricity will be 50 time more expensive than average on a cold November night in the ad break during Coronation street. If you think rail fares are complex and unfair just wait…. Do you want to monitor your electricity usage on a minute by minute basis and cook your Xmas dinner at 2am on March 22nd just to avoid peak pricing? You don’t? You will cook it like everybody else on the 25th of Dec from 11:00 to 14:00 and just pay the penalty tariff………
4) Smart meters are specifically intended to permit remote energy rationing and will allow remote control of a persons heating and appliances
I can see what is in this for:
Companies – higher margins, less capital expenditure on generation capacity
Government – local, national,supra-national: – Lovely personal data, control, ability to blame the individual. Agenda 21
Eco-Nazis – love the idea (for proles) of a non industrial civilisation that burns cow shit for heating. All hail Agenda 21, reduce the population by 95% Now!
The BBC – They are eco-Nazis
But as for the public at large. There is a lot of very deep downside but no upside. I would love the BBC to ask 1,000 people what there reaction to this is…..
Do you want £12 billion to be spent on devices that when installed (never to be removed) in your home will make gas and electricity tariffs much more complex and expensive. Devices that will ration your use of energy, permit third parties to turn on and off and adjust your heating and appliances all at the same time as they tells anybody interested precisely how many times you switch the lights on?
Is there ANY chance that the BBC will explain the policy reasons for smart meters?
I’m never going to let one be installed on my property! I know what’s in the smart meter initiative for me as I already live in dim blue-barely lit medieval gloom because I have to use toxic mercury vapour lamps rather than nice warm light bulbs (that ‘waste’ energy doesn’t vanish – it heats my home. I rue the day my last 200w bulb blew)
Old style lamps still available, ignore their mercury filled shite.
I saw last week in supermarket of German origin, ( other supermarkets available lol) a stack of 100 watt tunsten filament lamps. They carried a warning, not suitable fir domestic lighting. Yeah right!
And they were ” made in china”
Soon we will be importing from Afghanistan with the dope!
Love it! We are living in ‘1984’. Did Winston Smith not leave the areas controlled by ‘Big Brother’ to experience life and freedom as it once existed? Where people retained their humanity and dignity, away from the oppressive State.
I will shop at this store in future.
Smart metering is all about demand management, there is no advantage to the individual customer at all. Any ‘savings’ to the consumer will be achieved by matching demand to supply.
What does that mean? Well suppose ‘everyone’ turns on their kettles just before Eastenders they produce a consumption peak which is catered for by connecting higher-costing supplies to the grid. With Smart Metering comes ‘demand management’, which is just a fancy way of saying that the consumer is cut-off. So no more expensive peaks to cater for, simple!
They also provide a simple way of what to do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine with the advantage that control is selective rather than crudely by area. Possible if your first name starts with ‘E’ and your surname starts with ‘D’ one can be assured that your electricity supply is assured regardless of any ‘Brownouts’ in your neighbourhood.
British Gas cold called me 3 days ago to tempt me into their fold as a customer. The hook? Free supply of smart meters.
I told the sales person where to shove her smart meters and the reason why.
The offer then morphed into a £150 cash bung!
I still told ’em to bog off.
I’ve heardAnn Robinson of Uswitch interviewed, they claim the biggest saving will be due to a customer display giving a constant account of electricity usage, plus remote meter reading will save costs.
I already achieved both those with an “owl’ remote display, and submitting my own readings online. Total cost; £25. There appears to be a huge deceit operating about smart meters. Nobody is reporting it honestly.
The £12 billion would be far better spent building power stations.
It won’t be long before we find that the populace take matters into their own hands by bypassing these devices. All taxation requires the acquiescence of the people.
Witness the stirling work being done by cannabis farmers, as they bypass the national grid.
Yet the likes of Sarah Montague fret about their putting themselves at risk, by doing so-are the energy suppliers doing enough to warn the Marxists(Howard), about the threat to their `elf by so doing…not a Corgi Reg or CheckATrade made available for these “farmers of medicinal herbs”.
You know something?…maybe the dope fiends are teaching the REST of us how to f*** this rotten edifice of a system.
The BBC have lost the will to go on, and just want a purple haze for Islam and Roma gypsies to smile coyly through.
The Today Show is probably some lefty code for their fellow turds, and has replaced trainers up on lamp posts as code for Qatada or Barroso to take this nation at their convenience.
Sorry bub, I predict a riot.
The trouble is when the general public start to see criminal behaviour as excusable or ‘normal’ then the rot really has set in. As a mild example look at the laws on speeding. The government introduce a law on speeding on motorways because, ostensively, of the number of crashes and the cost to the NHS. Most people obey them to start off with but as cars get safer and safer the speed limit stays the same or, on single carriageway A roads, is actually reduced. So people start to exceed the limit and the worse the difference between the limit and the perceived threat more and more people break the law. The response of the government? More oppressive laws and then, as the enforcement of these laws becomes too expensive, the introduction of technology. The response of the people is simple, they either acquiesce or circumvent, some even take to smashing the technology.
All of this adds up, in a small way, to more and more people being in conflict with the state and its agents. In other words the Police. This creates a feedback loop of criminality which gives the government the excuse for more oppressive laws.
All resulting in the ideal conditions for revolution and the introduction of a truly oppressive regime, i.e. socialist heaven.
Well it seems that some posters have nailed the sinister purpose of these ‘smart’ meters.
To give the history of these meters, they were introduced by requirement of the EU, but in nothing like the guise that they are in the UK. No surprise that it was Tony BLiar who decided the meters should be far more invasive than the original requirements, rather like his invasive authoritarian identity card scheme.
So instead of the meters costing a reasonable amount, they now cost much more and to pay for it BLiar decided to introduce another stealth tax , this time called a ‘levy’ on domestic use of gas & electric. You can bet that once these meters have been rolled out the levy will stay the same, much in the way of the TV tax being top sliced to pay for freeview – it never came down once the switch over had been made.
I have had notice that they want to fit a smart meter to my house, but I was under the impression it was compulsory not optional. Great news that I don’t have to have one. In fact it seems that if I have one fitted before the official roll out it might have to be replaced ! In addition it may not work with other energy companies should I decide to switch.
The meter cannot really save energy, all it can do is display the current usage, and thanks to paranoid officialdom, it is likely that home owners will not be able to read it remotely as is the case with water meters which communicate by Bluetooth.
It appears that the function which can be used to remotely cut off non payers, can also be used to remotely disconnect high users for a period when demand is high, thus the government will be able to meet the stupid ‘green’ targets which BLiar signed us up for.
Expect the government to build no new generating capacity other than the odd gas station, which has spurred the need for fracking. All the gas produced from this process, even before any is found is destined to be used for generation, with none of it reaching the domestic market. Not for Britain the benefits of cheap energy seen in the USA.
I’m sure that heavy users of electricity will ‘benefit’ from utility companies advertising and sales calls, as they obviously want to keep this kind of customer.
The other functions are pretty much cursory with add on function Labour thought politically advantageous at a later date.
I take a reading of my meters every week and an app on my phone produces a graph which tell me my consumption over a 12 month period. I know how expensive energy is, I don’t need a smart meter to tell me !
And just in case you think smart meters are the best thing since sliced bread . Google “smart meter health risk”.
From the Telegraph – “Stop Smart Meters UK told MPs that there is evidence the radiation could be 140 to 800 times higher than that from mobile phones.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10015679/British-families-at-risk-from-smart-meters-campaigners-tell-MPs.html
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