Phase 1 (2019 –2020) – 250,000 meters upgraded. Initial smart services being turned on in Q4 2020. This will include services such as time-of-use tariffs, smart bills, access to historical consumption information, etc.
Phase 2 (2021 –2022) – 1million additional meters upgraded and the addition of smart prepayment (Smart PAYG) in Q4 2022.
Phase 3 (2023–2024) – 1 million additional meters upgraded and additional functionality will be made available by ESBN through a Home Area Network (HAN). This will allow consumers to access real-time data on their household energy usage via a device in their home. At this stage the costs and benefits of gas smart meters will be analysed by the CRU to determine their delivery.
but given the lack of broadband in much of the country
then who knows when gas meters will be converted.
Because there’s a big difference between technology existing to do something and it actually being widely deployed. So far, the economics just don’t stack up, mainly because there are so many meters. I was involved in this about 15 years ago: the technology existed even then, but it didn’t make sense, except in certain scenarios. There are three sets of costs: the cost of the meters with the capability, the cost of installing them and the cost of the network required to get the information from the meter. It’s only with 5G that mobile networks will be specifically designed for this kind of application. Then there’s the issue of power: apart from electricity meters where power can be “borrowed”, you need to power a smart gas or water meter: batteries have to be replaced periodically. The cost of smart meter rollout in the UK is about £11billion. That would pay for a lot of manual meter reading over an extended period, and certainly not anything any private company would take on.Why on earth do we still have people walking around the country taking gas and electricity meter readings? I'm sure the technology has existed for decades to automate that function. It seems to be a massive waste of money employing people to do it.
I can produce better more accurate estimates than the ESB when they miss meter readings.
Because I have my summer & winter readings (units used), I can accurately forecast my consumption per 61 day billing cycle (we get 6 ESB bills per year) in any year and produce the resulting invoices to within a euro or two of the actual bill. ESB in winter grossly underestimate consumption in my experience, sometimes by in excess of €100. The numbers they use for consumption figures on "estimated" bills seem to come from a random number generator!Am I missing something?
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