SMART METERS

The government is intent on ensuring that we all have smart energy meters, they claim that we will all be able to save money by cutting our energy bills when we get them. I very much doubt this. Surely the vast majority of people are well aware that if they use a 3Kw electric fire it will cost them far more for an hour than a light bulb, or a washing machine will cost more for an hour than a refrigerator, they really don’t need a meter to tell them this. If they wish to cut their electricity bill they already have a very good idea of what they need to do. It has been said in the media on a number of occasions that the cost of installing smart meters nationwide will be about £11billion. If we assume that there are about 25million households in the UK then the cost/household will be £444, and that is a conservative estimate. That seems a fairly expensive meter to me and there can be no doubt that, in the end, it will be the consumer who pays. We would all have to struggle quite hard to save that much energy and we could all have done that if we so wished without the aid of a smart meter. I certainly feel no need for a smartmeter and would resent any increase in my electricity charges as a consequence of their widespread installation. I do not understand the government’s enthusiasm but I can understand the enthusiasm of the energy suppliers. I understand these meters will transmit the details of the customer’s usage directly to the supplier, this removes the need for staff to send a man to read meters and the need for staff to put customers own readings in the company’s processor. The readings transmitted from the smart meters will be automatically fed into the supplier’s computer and that computer will be able to automatically take the money from the banks of the customers that pay by direct debit, or it will be able to automatically print and post bills to the rest. The whole process untouched by human hand, the saving in staff costs will be considerable. Ron Watts