Of course its for the benefit of BOTH parties as I explained in my case it would be quite involved to check in any other way and whats the downside? NONE

I do agree they should have developed a standard first though. BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

Until they come up with a universal standard, they can stick it.

What annoys me is that they are in no way 'smart'. They do nothing but tell the usage .... big f-in wow .

How many people will have gone:

You could save money by plugging in a smart meter ...

/plugs in meter
/changes no habits
/expects meter to be smart and do stuff

6 months later, bill still the same.

I do understand the idea of seeing usage, but the reality is that the only change that can come will be from user habit, and not thick meters.

Interesting comment about the air-con setup though. V8 or else ...

AJGalaxy2012 wrote:

I have air conditioning fitted which can heat as well as cool and really wanted to know if it was cheaper for heating than using gas. The end result was quite interesting, at about -8 deg C the heat pump is about the same cost as running the gas boiler, anywhere above -8 deg C the heatpump is cheaper.

Very interesting

I'm renovating a house right now and thinking about aircon

When you way 'heatpump' are you using a regular aircon air to air pump ?

I'm likely not brave enough to go all in, so will fit gas central heating radiators and electric aircon

I initially had air to air heat pump which on UK prices is just slightly cheaper to run than gas (mine had a COP of 3), I now have a ground source heat pump and thats even better. If I ever build a house of my own design, maybe next year when I retire, I would do ground source heat pump and underfloor wet heating to get most benefit. The flow temperatures are lower than a gas boiler so bigger rads are needed, underfloor works very well on lower temperatures. I would still retain some air to air units for a quick boost of heat or cooling in the summer.
I would add solar power and a battery wall for storage too. BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

Smart meters are there to also allow Time of Use TOU metering, I.e, higher tariffs during peak demand periods. Ron B. VK2OTC
2003 L322 V8 Auto
2007 Yamaha XJR1300
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