@majordennisbloodnok Sometimes I feel the world may be passing me by! Regards, Confused Toodles!

Posted by: @derek-m

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Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Posted by: @transparent

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That Octopus article is clear and helpful (although I don't understand the hamburger reference).

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If you follow the link, the Octopus page has a button at the top left saying "Menu" next to three horizontal lines. Those horizontal lines form a symbol that is very common on web pages and is called a Hamburger.

 

I learn something new almost every day. 🙄  

Now I'd say you've picked the wrong smiley. To me, learning something new every day is a wonderful thing. 😏 

@majordennisbloodnok The world passing me by might require 😵‍💫 Regards, Confused.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Posted by: @derek-m

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Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Posted by: @transparent

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That Octopus article is clear and helpful (although I don't understand the hamburger reference).

...

If you follow the link, the Octopus page has a button at the top left saying "Menu" next to three horizontal lines. Those horizontal lines form a symbol that is very common on web pages and is called a Hamburger.

 

I learn something new almost every day. 🙄  

Now I'd say you've picked the wrong smiley. To me, learning something new every day is a wonderful thing. 😏 

 

Well that is two new things that I have learned today, maybe I'll get a hatrick. 😊 

Posted by: @toodles

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@majordennisbloodnok The world passing me by might require 😵‍💫 Regards, Confused.

When I was younger I used to worry quite a bit about being left behind. These days I take a look at the direction everyone's heading in before deciding whether being left behind is a good or bad thing. If I'm not wasting effort trying to stay at the cutting edge of, for instance, social media, I can channel that effort into something that's is important to me. I looked for the :smug git: emoji but couldn't find it.

@majordennisbloodnok Does the server need some Rennie???

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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As far as I can see, the whole reason for the time offset is to benefit the grid. I understand the reason for it, but there is no direct benefit to the consumer, to the energy supplier or to the smart tech manufacturer.

1: There is a very strong benefit to us consumers.

Without implementing a staggered time offset, there will need to be a massive rise in the cost of electricity in order to upgrade the grid!
Here's National Grid's plan to be put forward to Ofgem, which basically assumes that consumers carry on as now:

The cost of upgrades (transmission and distribution grid) is more than the total for HS2.
History suggests that the best time for a rethink is before we start, not after we've got as far as Birmingham 🤔 

2: The benefit to manufacturers is that their devices will operate within the protective walls of the Smart Meter Network,
and there won't be customer complaints due to incorrect billing.

The time offsets must be implemented alongside the billing system.
You can't separate the two issues without getting errors.

3: Energy Suppliers have little incentive to populate the Smart Meters with correct data, however.

What they want is:

• to have control over the customers' smart devices, rather than have them designed to be intrinsically smart
• to gain market-share by offering bundled deals of equipment and matching tariff
• to enjoy the increased revenue because customers don't (yet) realise that their bills might be incorrect

Posted by: @derek-m

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Or alternatively they could just tell consumers what offset has been applied to their meter.

If DESNZ are correct in what they've told me, then I see no reason why each customer shouldn't be told by their Supplier what their Randomised Offset is set to.

However, the SMETS2 spec has placed this information inside a software 'security envelope'.
I've been thinking about the data within that envelope for several years now.
Most of it makes sense, but I haven't yet found a reason why the Randomised Offset should be in there.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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As far as I can see, the whole reason for the time offset is to benefit the grid. I understand the reason for it, but there is no direct benefit to the consumer, to the energy supplier or to the smart tech manufacturer.

 

 

1: There is a very strong benefit to us consumers.

Without implementing a staggered time offset, there will need to be a massive rise in the cost of electricity in order to upgrade the grid!

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That's not what I said, though. I said there wasn't a direct benefit to the consumer. The avoidance of a big upgrade bill is an indirect benefit and, as such, hidden. In order for consumers to accept the extra complexity is, in fact, beneficial they not only have to understand the basic reasoning but also agree with it, and you can only convince them of that by viewing the whole smart meter thing from their point of view. That's precisely the point I was making, as highlighted in the quote below.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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If anything is to move towards greater involvement of smart meters I believe the following things have to happen:

• The regulators have to enforce that tariffs are provided to the smart meters as per the specifications by the energy suppliers.
• The general public have to become convinced that the way smart meters work is a good thing generally and provides a benefit to each individual user (i.e. that the Government isn't an interfering villain, but that the techie way smart meters have been designed is a little financial guardian angel doing its stuff for us all without us having to understand it).
• The smart meter coverage area needs to be close to 100% of the country. Without that, an alternative (i.e. APIs) will always be essential and even then any strategy will just be seen as a plan for the lucky ones.

As for benefits to the manufacturer ....

Posted by: @transparent

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2: The benefit to manufacturers is that their devices will operate within the protective walls of the Smart Meter Network,
and there won't be customer complaints due to incorrect billing.

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... that's a circular argument. It's effectively saying that device manufacturers benefit from the time offset by billing being able to take into account the complexities the time offset has itself introduced. If designing products to deal with this costs anything, that's not a benefit at all. Once again, the only way for this to be accepted is by taking the view of the consumer so the manufacturer understands the customer wants the greater complexity and will buy a compliant product over a non-compliant one.

I still think we're missing the more important observations in this discussion.

The public is insufficiently aware of the benefits which they can achieve through their Smart Meter because the Suppliers and the Regulator are allowing them to be used primarily for the benefit of the Suppliers themselves. We are being short-changed without knowing it.

Allow me to illustrate with an example of what is already happening:

Sub-title: If I want to gain £1m, which is easier to get away with...

• Find someone with £1m and take it?
• Find 10-million people and remove 10p from each of them?

The timeline which I presented earlier illustrated the effect of me manually switching on a device in my home before the Smart Meter had actually started my cheap-rate period.

Now let's suppose that it's not the customer who switches on that device, but their Energy Supplier.
And, since the Supplier had decided not to populate the ToU price matrix, nor implement the Auxilliary Load Control Switching (ALCS) features, the ON command is to be sent across the internet.

The upper green portion of the timeline shows what would happen if the ALCS feature were used to turn on the device for half-an-hour.
The ALCS command can be sent at any time prior to this, or could be installed as a permanent command to be executed daily.

The Smart Meter automatically applies the Randomised offset of 460-secs and the device actually switches on at 00:37:40.
The bill will be accurate.

The lower orange portion of the timeline illustrates a command being sent by the Supplier, with their own pseudo-random time offset of 180-secs.
Without either the Supplier or the Customer knowing what the meter's true Randomised offset is, the Supplier is financially better off.

That illustration shows what is actually happening in the case of 'Smart' EV chargers.

The relevant section-11 of the EV Charging Regulations (2021) states that the Supplier must assign their own pseudo-random delay to mitigate surges.

Are we content with that?

For business owners Octopus is offering 21p p/kWh on a 12 month contract.

Posted by: @transparent

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The public is insufficiently aware of the benefits which they can achieve through their Smart Meter because the Suppliers and the Regulator are allowing them to be used primarily for the benefit of the Suppliers themselves. We are being short-changed without knowing it.

In that I agree entirely.

As a bit of a recap, I am not against the use of a smart-meter-centric setup or in favour of an open setup. I am in favour of solid building blocks being put in place and letting the market work out the best way to use them. If the SMETS2 spec is to feature then that, as @transparent has repeatedly highlighted, requires the energy suppliers to provide the data and that requires the regulator to apply a big stick where the carrots offered so far have failed.

In parallel to this, the benefits need to be marketed to the public. It doesn't matter whether the technical superiority or greater benefits exist (:cough: VHS vs Betamax); what matters is what the customers decide and that's all about perception.

Ofgem has announced a decrease in the price cap on April 1, reaching its lowest level in two years. Hopefully by next winter it’ll have dropped below 20p/kWh. But the standing charge keeps going up and up and up:

24.50 pence per kWh

60.10 pence daily standing charge