http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23513305



£1.58bn is obscene with the constant rises IMO

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Lets be careful out there !

Let's point the finger at the real villains; the politicians and their corrupt banker and shady big business colleagues. They truly are 'all in it together'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23513305
Or put it another way; don't these energy bosses realise we are getting closer to a general election?

Actually, for any politician who is a member of the LibLabCon party to complain about rip-off high prices by foreign owned organisations making eye-watering profits on energy is sheer hypocrisy of the highest order. Privatisation of essential supplies and services has been, and continues to be, the deliberate policy of all the LibLabCon. Also, it is LibLabCon policy to load up gas and electricity prices with green taxes in order to subsidise grossly inefficient wind turbines and solar panels. It is the LibLabCon that supports Britain's membership of the cO2 hating EU.

A similar situation exists with road fuel prices; the LibLabCon likes to make a lot of public noise about high prices for road fuel whilst ignoring the fact that government taxes account for about 84 pence in the price of every litre of road fuel. The politicians and their dodgy business partners in crime really do regard us all as fools.

the latest is that BG are considering giving their customers on Smart Meters free electricity on Saturdays to relieve pressure during the week.

Now is it worth getting a Smart Meter or is it a con and I'll end up paying more overall ?

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Lets be careful out there !

Maybe it's to try and win customers back. I'm no longer with British Gas but would look at their prices if there was free electric once a week.

The golden rule is: there is nothing free in this world.

I shan't be having a smart meter until I am compelled to have one by law. Currently the law doesn't require me have a smart meter (I wrote to the Department for Energy and Climate Change and asked whether I am compelled to have a smart meter when offered one by the energy supplier- they wrote and told me that I am not required to have one).

Smart meters are a snooper's/burglar's key into our homes and private lives. Smart meters also enable the energy supplier to change/increase prices at any time of night or day without warning.

Smart meters require power to operate their electronics and wireless communications, and guess which side of the power meter is likely to be paying for all that. Smart meters are in micro-wave wireless communication with the supplier, which means inside every smart meter is a micro-wave transmitter of unknown power, and in our homes.

With an appropriate wireless scanner it is possible to read and interrogate every RFID chip in our homes; chips that could be in our credit cards, fridge, TV, telephone, anywhere. How do we know what the capability of a smart meter micro-wave link is? If the smart does have the abilty to read every RFID chip in our homes then do we trust the energy supplier to tell us what the capabilities are? I don't.

I do know that modern new cars are fitted as standard with a lot of data gathering capability about our driving methods and standards (an aircraft type black box), data that can be used to find us guilty in the event of an incident the authorities choose to investigate. How many motor manufacturers fully explain the data gathering capability of their new cars to a customer? I don't know of one, and I have asked a motor dealer to explain to me the full capabilities of the on-board data gathering systems. He admitted it was there, but either wasn't prepared to tell me the full details, or wasn't able to. The dealer did confess though that the data could be used to prosecute me.

Smart meters are like smart cars, uninvited guests into our private lives. Guests that could turn round and bite us whenever the authorities so choose.

What kind of government is it that permits/encourages the spying of our private lives without first seeking our democratic approval? Answer: A government with dictatorial aspirations.


P.S: Anybody considering having a smart meter installed should first check with their supplier that the customer will continue to have the freedom to change supplier in the future. I hear there are serious questions over this freedom to change supplier after a smart meter has been installed.

Since posting I've been having a chat with the Project Manager of the UK DECC smart meter initiative (my company is running it).

He has shown me the style of European smart meter which is totally different to the US one that is an ugly grey external cylindrical affair. The EUR smart meters actually communicate via GPRS (3G Sim) and not microwave.

His advice though was to go on the website and just 'show an interest' because if you sign up you will more than likely not be offered the Saturday deal. The energy companies have a mandate to have so many installed by some end of decade date and another mandate to have it all done a few years later.

Apparently Sweden are in the same boat and they are nowhere near finished and they don't have our population = we have no chance looking at the stats.

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Lets be careful out there !

I got a letter recently offering me a priority smart meter....
It went straight into my shredder.

I can see them doing a free day a week just to meet quota's on installation. If I was of a mind to go down that route and I am not. I would have some solar panels installed on the roof and train bright lights on them on the free leccy day.

Should charge the system sufficiently to have free power for the rest of the week, maybe even flog some of it back to them.

It's all starting to fall into place now.

To qualify you first need a Smart Meter (obviously). They will then be introducing a new plan in 2014 that gives free Saturday electricity but also raises your Mon-Fri tariff - oh what a con/surprise !!!

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Lets be careful out there !

So that's all a non starter then

I'll stick to my current supplier and keep sending them monthly meter readings.

Just a little useless information, I live in SE Louisiana mostly and in a flood plain, all meters had to be 14ft above ground, the meter reader used to use binoculars to read it, it's computerized now.