Smart meters

[cromwell]

Many stories in the press about smart meters being readied for variable charging.
Use your power at popular times and get charged more.
Something of the kind already exists now, but I don't have a good feeling about this. Popular times are popular for a reason. People all over the country get up, have breakfast and go to work. So anything from 6am to 8am is going to be popular.
Similarly when people come home from work and have their evening meal.
What are they supposed to do? Skip breakfast? Have their evening meal at 2am to save money?
This strikes me as more of a stealth tax than anything to do with saving the planet.

[TheOstrich]

I've read that your smart meter will send the energy company readings every 30 minutes to allow this variable charging scheme to function - said to be be planned for 2025?
That will be the default for all new smart meters unless you opt otherwise.
What happens to existing smart meters where the default is already set for a daily or a weekly reading - will they insist that is changed?

Personally I'm glad we haven't got one.

[Suff]

The whole point about smart meters was for the utilities to be able to get the data to allow them to estimate and plan for demand.

Very altruistic and it was always going to be a tool used to push prices up at some point. I'm not a fan of government regulation but, in this case, I think it is needed.