Unfortunately, this deal has expired 8 February 2022.
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1820°
Posted 4 February 2022
£50 credit to upgrade your smart meter (Account specific) @ Octopus Energy
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Lpmenglish
Joined in 2020
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102
About this deal
This deal is expired. Here are some options that might interest you:
Octopus are offering customers £50 credit on their account for upgrading to the newest smart meters. Given the costs are going up everywhere, it’s money for nothing. First come first served so check your account!
More details at Octopus Energy has currently £50 credit for you and the referrer when you sign up with Octopus Energy campaign, if you want to use it you can do so from this .
Community Updates
Edited by a community support team member, 4 February 2022
422 Comments
sorted bythe government want all households to be fitted with smart meters that is why all the energy companies are shilling it so much... They are not cheaper than a man coming to check your meter yearly as the unit itself costs over £500 + installation. The guy from Morrisons data services (meter readers) are basically on £10/hr + company vehicle and go to roughly 4-5 houses an hour so basically costs £2.50 to read your meter once year Even if they go to 1 house an hour that is £10 hmmm so that means 50+ years! to break even on fitting a smart meter. The government does have other plans.
Because it's cheaper than sending an employee round to read them?
When you have a smart meter installed you help the energy company plan their energy purchase better so they only buy what people use therefore they can keep their prices lower by not over-purchasing energy.
That "great company" installed a single meter instead of a double rate meter. After that, I had 1 or 2 visits of people which suppose to "know a thing". Guy told me they have to put a meter to the system etc and it's now February Octopus is a joke company, they promised me that agileOctopus tariff and almost after a year with having a smart meter I can't give them numbers or switch to that tariff. I told them I won't pay them for that kW which were used as I don't know which were used on the night or a day. After that, they stop contact with me.
In my opinion, smart meters are great, but those brainless farts are not able to program them, I should have that meter already connected with "base" and work, but my "smart" meter still works as a single rate meter and it's disconnected because Octopus want me to pay for that used electricity like for single meter one (even if I still have a contract for 2 rate meter one).
I guess it's worth risking
Conspiracy theories make people feel clever, and that they're the real 'heroes' of the situation.
Apart from the smaller problems with old meters that affect us personally, like the small nuisance of submitting a reading manually, or having someone from the energy company come to read the meter, or the problems with estimated billing, the bigger issue they're aiming to resolve is energy planning.
More accurate information on how much energy people use and (importantly) at what time will allow more appropriate planning. Atm huge amounts of time, money and resources are spent trying to stockpile energy for peak times. Huge amounts of gas, at quite some expense, are readied to be burned every afternoon to supply the grid and meet the daily energy peak time of 4pm - 7pm. If energy suppliers knew when people are using more energy, and can encourage us to spread our energy use more evenly through the day it will save on costs, create more efficient energy production, and benefit us all.
So they can gather big data from consumption trends of the consumers and then be able to charge more on certain times. Thank me later!
I have been with 2 energy suppliers now and both refuse to fix the issues.
There is a problem with the Smets 2 software allegedly.
I have to send monthly meter readings or they do a Guesstimate at over £200 a month
octopus.energy/blo…ys/
they are fairly big
Smart meters aren't suspicious or some control experiment, they have their use in helping to manage the grid more finely but they benefit you individually only incidentally. They do allow you to better see what you're using which some people find helpful in saving money.
There's also the potential to use your smart meter to to a more controlled alternative to Economy 7. As energy demands change you'll be able to set the tumble dryer to work at the cheapest time, whenever that is and an EV can charge whenever the grid has spare capacity.
There's some silly fear about the grid cutting off things like EV charging, this is said by people who likely have never owned an EV. The reality is that you don't charge your car daily unless you have a tiny battery or drive extreme miles. It also doesn't matter if you want to override and charge at full rate, you'll just pay the price if you're on a variable tariff. I'm on a fixed tariff at the moment and yet I still have my smart charger set to charge off-peak because I know it helps the grid, it's a small action that helps everyone yet gives me personally no financial advantage.
Smart meters ultimately aren't about you, they aren't about spying on your kettle usage, you aren't that important. It's about having the opportunity to take advantage of having better knowledge about the grid and eventually balancing the grid as a whole.
As for my experience, wow, the smart metering system as an ideal is good, the implementation is a disappointment. It's taken months to get my gas readings done properly and I've had to escalate things to management to get it sorted.
Should you do it? Probably.
Are Octopus good? Better than many, but not always trouble free, at least they care.
Many years ago ee smelt gas in our home. We rang the emergency number on our bills and they told us to immediately vacate the house and turn the gas off at the meter. It was fun times.
If we didn't have access to our gas meter then it would have been turned off upstream for the whole neighborhood.
Maybe you can have your meter moved outside your shed?
The authorities can cut your supply through legal means anyway. Makes no difference really.
Doesn’t make you £50 though does it
Inevitably the traditional Evening peak 4.30pm - 8.30pm period will be charged at perhaps as much as three or four times the cost of Electricity used at other times of the day - so 80p per kWh or even more may very well be the reality for the cost of energy used during the Early Evening hours in order to get people to change their energy usage patterns to spread out demand. Of course that change may mean banning your kids off the PlayStation when they get in from School, sitting in the dark and delaying cooking your tea until after 8.30pm - but hey! You'll be saving the planet!!!!
Since my boss won't let me go home at 11AM to be able to take advantage of the cheaper rate periods, the majority of my usage will be in the Evening when I get in from something called "work".
Energy companies aren't Saints or your Mum and politicians really don't give a single flying toss about the well being of 68 million complete strangers so I seriously doubt anything either of them advise will really be in my best interests. If you think otherwise - then very good luck with that theory and belief!.
Non of this is a conspiracy theory, as tiered and even seasonal tariffs are already present in some business tariffs, so it's now only a matter of time before they start being rolled out into domestic metering, and accepting a smart meter is just silent acceptance in encouraging it!.
So I'll keep my dumb meter for as long as possible, as there is no way I'm going to be penalised for working for a living. (edited)
Basically I have no billing history for the past year, and they had to manually do a bunch of stuff, I have no way of knowing if it's correct or tracking my usage.
Wont get any credit from Ofgem towards their targets though
Ofgem also force them to install them and can fine them a substantial amount of money if they don't do enough. (edited)
G3 shutdown is 2033. Lifespan of a smart meter is 10 years. So all SMart meters installed before 2023 will be replaced by then.
I would remove that link. It has your octopus account number there.
Because information is power
I think this is incorrect.
I have read debt sites & none mention court. From what I have read you do not have to be taken to court for your energy supply to be cut off.
Its not entirely because you refused to pay your bills... I work with meters, I dont install them but mostly swap them back to "dumb" meters... I've had people be remotely shut off because they changed suppliers as if its the new suppliers problem to fit their own meter. Yes there are legal routes you have to follow, but if there's scope to control the meter then it'll happen.
After all was sorting everything is working fine and you can still play the wheel of fortune which you will win nothing on lol.
I think the poster means with a smart meter they could cut your supply remotely without actually visiting your property, I am sure there are legal channels to follow in order for this to happen - or perhaps one day a bored hacker might feel it's funny to shut down power to thousand of homes (or just one) ? (edited)
Exactly this!
The price hike will also "tempt us" with slightly cheaper rates, but you must have a smart meter.
All manipulation.
But they won't need to enter your home to do it, with a smart meter. A push of a button will do it. (edited)
Apart from the fact that this is not true.
However, the do have to assess for risk & some categories of people cannot get cut off.
The court order would be for breaking in to access the meter. Not for the debt.
So they have the ability to limit people's usage in order to 'combat climate change'.
I’ve never seen an energy company who wanted to fit a smart meter for me describe it in that way. (edited)
Thanks to OP, conspiracy or not…as with anything if you’re eligible and wna do it then great, otherwise don’t….I know I know rocket science right?! (edited)
I get emails from octopus to remind me to read me meters but they don’t seem to be regular or consistent. First I was getting them in advance but now it seems I get one only when the reading is late (edited)
You don't need to submit readings. You'll automatically get a bill every month with a link to the wheel of fortune. Been with them for years but yet to win anything
2. A 'benefit' of smart meters is that suppliers can charge different rates for different time blocks. E.G. Low, Normal and Peak zones. This happened in Spain recently. idealista.com/en/…amp
Haha , unfortunately the same sorts of loon have been saying this sort of stuff since the 90’s. Strange they never had an issue with the much higher transmission power needed over the air TV. (edited)