Be Wary of "Dumb" Smart Meters

Smart meters are the future of monitoring our gas and electricity use, but only if they truly are smart meters and not the so-called "dumb" meters that are currently rife in the market. In order for smart meters to make an impression on energy consumption habits, they need to meet a certain standard of competence; otherwise they are as good as useless. Check that your smart meter has the following features in order to avoid being duped into purchasing a poor equivalent.

The first thing a smart meter must have in order to qualify as being truly useful is real-time monitoring. The whole point of smart meters is that the electronic monitor will be able to give up-to-date information on how much energy is being used at any particular time of the day. Some of the smart meters on the market have a significant time delay when presenting information. Without real-time information, the accuracy of smart meters is lost and customers will not be able to make informed decisions about their energy consumption habits.

Secondly, smart meters must be able to feed information to the customer as well as the supplier if they are going to combat high gas and electricity use. One of the more common complaints from the USA is that although their smart meters are fitted with real-time monitoring systems, only the supplier has access to the information at any given time. Consumers can access the information but only once the supplier has had their energy statistics for 24 hours.

Again, giving real-time information to the supplier but not to the customer is counter-intuitive, going against the principle of smart meters which is to provide more accurate information to consumers so they can adjust the amount of energy they use, particularly during peak times. If the supplier gets hold of the information but denies the customer for a whole day, then it will be too late for the customer to make informed changes to their consumption 24 hours after the event.

Finally, smart meters should have the advanced technology necessary to "talk" to smart appliances as they become more readily available in the market place. The technology will allow smart meters to switch off appliances automatically during times of peak energy. Although this addition makes smart meters more expensive, it is a crucial advancement for allowing consumers to reduce the amount of energy they use around the home.