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3-Phase smart meter finally going in


AliG

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9 minutes ago, joth said:

It's a standing charge per meter. So one 3 phase meter, one standing charge. Three x single phase meter, three charges. The latter would be useful e.g. splitting a large house into three flats

Ok, so is it the same charge as if it were a single phase supply or is enhanced by a factor of say 3? I just sense there is an extra-over overhead "Billing companies" need to recover for an enhanced service and no one has mentioned it yet.

Edited by coconutsaregood
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No, exactly the same standing charge as single phase.

 

The wait from my phone call to meter install is around 6 weeks.

 

I too wouldn't shift to Octopus without already having a smart meter as I have heard horror stories of people being stuck on their high variable tariffs for months.

 

At the moment I expect to shift to Octopus Go. I wonder how long they can keep up 5p/kWh during the night when Octopus agile is way higher than that.

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3 hours ago, coconutsaregood said:

Ok, so is it the same charge as if it were a single phase supply or is enhanced by a factor of say 3? I just sense there is an extra-over overhead "Billing companies" need to recover for an enhanced service and no one has mentioned it yet.

Not really - it sounds like it should, but the smart bit in a 3-phase meter is exactly the same. All they need to do extra is fit two more of the very dumb current measuring circuits and build in a circuit to add up the sum of the three phases before feeding it to the smart bit of the meter. That's very cheap to do.

The big impact of a 3-phase meter is that anybody requesting one is very likely to be anticipating that they will use a lot of electricity. That's good for someone, either the electricity company or possibly metering company - so they're almost certain to eat the very modest additional cost in the expectation of future profits.

 

3 hours ago, AliG said:

At the moment I expect to shift to Octopus Go. I wonder how long they can keep up 5p/kWh during the night when Octopus agile is way higher than that.

Probably 6 months or so, although as soon as other people start raising prices I would expect they will too. As I understand it most tariffs are hedged, i.e. they've already agreed to buy the electricity in advance at a defined price. The spot market (where we're seeing very high prices) is a mechanism to balance supply and demand, so if I've understood correctly is only a fraction of the total cost of wholesale energy to most suppliers. Some tariffs are presumably not hedged (e.g. Agile), and other suppliers may not have sufficient cash to hedge well enough and so be exposed to very high market prices. They're the ones we're going to see failing.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 24/08/2021 at 15:47, AliG said:

I have been waiting forever to get a 3-phase SMETS2 smart meter which might allow me to take advantage of overnight rates for charging the car.

 

Is the wait nearly over? 

 

Ovo now want me to fit a smart meter. I'm not that keen as I like having my dinner at dinner time, not at 2am in the morning when the electric rate is affordable. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

OK, they turned up and installed the gas meter.

 

As I guessed might happen the gas meter cannot communicate with the electricity meter. They are about 10m apart with two cavity walls containing foil faced PIR in between.

 

The guy said that he would install the higher powered gas meter but it didn't help.

 

I guess I don't really need smart functions on a gas meter and the smart functionality is now working on the electricity meter.

 

My providers website seems to be updating the electricity reading every day now, but I cannot see the history or 30 minute readings anywhere, I think they do not offer that function, but I can download an app that maybe does, so I will try that.

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Seems from Google that I should have been asked if I wanted 30 minute or 1 day readings. I have contacted my supplier to see if they can fix it.

 

One thing I can see from the smart meter is that in the 6 weeks since it was installed I have only exported 11kWh vs around 200kWh generated. So during the winter I am using almost 100% of PV generation.

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45 minutes ago, AliG said:

One thing I can see from the smart meter is that in the 6 weeks since it was installed I have only exported 11kWh vs around 200kWh generated. So during the winter I am using almost 100% of PV generation.

 

1 hour ago, AliG said:

guess I don't really need smart functions on a gas meter and the smart functionality is now working on the electricity meter

Surely you do. If you can use your PV instead of gas then you are better off. 

Smart Metering is means to be more than just remote meter reading.

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1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Surely you do. If you can use your PV instead of gas then you are better off. 

Yes, its just that before I didn't actually know how much I was using and how much I was exporting. It was just a guess.

 

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Smart Metering is means to be more than just remote meter reading.

For the gas meter though there are no time of use tariffs, so I don't care as much.

 

I need a smart electricity meter to switch to Intelligent Octopus. By my calculation that will give me a price of around 17p/kWh compared to 21p that I will be on when my fix runs out.

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9 minutes ago, AliG said:

For the gas meter though there are no time of use tariffs, so I don't care as much.

 

I need a smart electricity meter to switch to Intelligent Octopus. By my calculation that will give me a price of around 17p/kWh compared to 21p that I will be on when my fix runs out.

Not having a variable tariff on the gas is an advantage, one less variable to match up.

But there have been times when variable electrical tariffs have been below the price of gas, maybe not at the moment, but there will be in the future.

So this is where you use a HA system to not use gas but use the PV or the cheaper than gas electricity.

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Trying to follow this thread. My old brain is struggling. UK Power are coming next week to lay our 3 phase supply to our cabinet. I am pretty sure our electrician told me that I had to contact a supplier but have forgotten why. Does he mean I must choose a supplier like Octopus or Eon? If so which is best?

We have a large array of solar panels and would like to export back to the grid after we have used what we need. That is the extent of my knowledge!

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After the supply is put in you need to contact a supplier who will arrange for a meter install.

 

For a new supply I have found the larger suppliers such as EON or EDF to be better at organising the meter install.

 

I would make sure that they can install a smart meter for three phase, not everyone has been historically, but it should be OK now.

 

At the moment you will just need to sign up to the standard variable tariff as their fixed tariffs are considerably more expensive.

 

You can sign up to an export tariff, but only with a smart meter that measures your export. The payments are outrageously low relative to the current price of electricity 3-5.5p depending on who you sign up with. This is a separate sign up to your electricity supplier. It is much better to try and sue all your PV generation to offset electricity at 21p/kWh. You can get meter prices with Octopus Agile Outgoing, but I see you cannot mix that with Octopus Go (It doesn't mention Intelligent Octopus). Don't sign up to Octopus Agile for incoming electricity, prices are crazy at the moment.

 

 

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Their service is supposedly good, but they do seem to sometimes have issues getting meters installed.

 

Normally this is an issue as they put people on a more expensive tariff until they get a smart meter installed. Many customers want the Octopus Go tariff. At the moment, however, this is less of an issue as the standard variable tariff is the best tariff that you can get (Octopus Go may be cheaper if you can displace a large amount of demand to during the night)

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Our electrician has mentioned Social Energy as a company that, although not supplying electricity now, does supply batteries that are cheaper than Tesla and their export tariff is  - up to 20p. It looks like they are staying in business for this side of things.

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