Is there any reason left not to go smart meter?

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121514971#Comment_121514971

Electric rads an use the excess and save on gas. Electric rads turn 1kWh of energy into heat. Unlike my 20 year old gas boiler which is much less efficient

unkel

Just got paid €600 into my bank account from "New Measured Power Ltd". Had to look that up, it is from Pinergy. Happy days, they'll be paying me a lot more from now on 😂

SD_DRACULA

Revenue by like...

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121526287#Comment_121526287

5 people on the bill, income tax threshold doubled from €200 to €400 per person contributing to the bill for 2024 (5 workers in the house). I will make sure I don't get more than €2,000 FIT next year. Not a cent income tax due on that.

SD_DRACULA

Good to know it's going to 400 per person 🤣

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121526914#Comment_121526914

Yes was in the budget. Double the €200 per person it was up until this year. Makes all the difference to my situation, I just have to make sure I stay under the €2000, if it looks like I might go over, I will increase electric home heating / crypto mining

Jonathan

My Energia EV Day Night is tariff up in mid January. Signed up again with Energia on their EV Smart plan. With the 9 hour D/N window, I've been fairly lax about charging EV, charging batteries and running appliances but will need to tighten things up now with the 4 hour window on the EV plan.

I've got a 10kWh battery, so I expect to see similar bills with the rates going from 40.61c/11.72c to 36.61c/8.15c (with an overage of 1.23c for units over 1000kWh per billing cycle).

For those with RM108 meters who have activated their meter by moving to a smart plan, what happens to the current meter is reconfigured as a RM107 meter? What happens to my current 1.8.2 (A+T2) and 1.8.1 (A+T1) readings? Are they reset to zero? Or are they left as is (even though they now refer to different time periods?), with 1.8.3 (A+T3) added as zero? Not that it really matters as billing is based on 30min interval data, just curious.

unkel

Did you do the sums @Jonathan? The energia deal is the second best in the market for sure for those with EVs and battery storage, but the Pinergy deal is far superior with 40% cheaper electricity, a much higher FIT and a €100 welcome bonus. Even if you regularly don't make it in their even shorter slot of 3 hours, this deal could still work out cheaper.

Of course the shorter the slot, the more disciplined you need to be about having stuff on schedules and plugging in your car every night, even if you do only about average annual mileage

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545724#Comment_121545724

Yes, but there are other factors too. An extra hour makes it a good bit easier to to run appliances in the entire EV window. Our dishwasher is a delayed start hourly timer, while the washing machine is a delayed finish hourly timer. While I'll probably get satisfaction from doing the mental gymnastics to work out exactly when to hit start to have the appliances to run in a 3 hour EV window, my OH will quickly tire of that.

FIT is definitely better on Pinergy, but not by a huge amount. 27.25c vs 24c. My aim is to minimise my grid import rather that export every last kWh, so the difference isn't huge. About €35 or so.

Also based on recent posts Pinergy support seems like a shambles. I haven't had many issues with Energia in my 5+ years with them, and when I did they were contactable and rectified the issue promptly.

unkel

@Jonathan - "My aim is to minimise my grid import rather that export every last kWh"

That's interesting, is there a particular reason for that? One would assume most people would have either the aim to minimise the bills or to maximise being green, the latter meaning maximising import at night import but also maximising on feeding in solar directly to the grid during the day

My own aim is to minimise my bills. For financial reasons purely, but also because it gives me the shortest pay back period on my solar / battery investment. This then also gives me the extra financial means / savings to further invest in going green. As in heat pump install is the next big plan

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545807#Comment_121545807

+1 to 'my OH will quickly tire of that'. When we do move to a 3 or 4 hour slot, I'll have to be the one to schedule all the devices. Our dishwasher and washing machine are the same - one is starting in X hours, other is ending in X hours. I'll have to check if they work on smart plugs and that gets around the issue.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545891#Comment_121545891

We'll continue as we have done. Self use what we reasonably can and will export the surplus. However, I won't be charging the battery from grid in the middle of July just to pinch a few extra euro or two in export rather than letting it recharge from solar the following day, or worse, dumping to grid at 1AM just to make the most of the export before charging again.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545902#Comment_121545902

You need to be careful running inductive loads (devices with motors i.e. dishwashers/washing machines) on smart plugs. Even decent ones rated at 13A are only rated at that for pure resistive loads.

unkel

@Jonathan - "I won't be charging the battery from grid in the middle of July just to pinch a few extra euro or two in export rather than letting it recharge from solar the following day, or worse, dumping to grid at 1AM just to make the most of the export before charging again."

The charging from the grid at night, to dump it into the grid the next evening at peak demand is actually one of the greenest things you could possibly do. Greener than installing PV in the first place imho.

Of course not so much if you do it at 1AM as there is no demand. The current pricing / reward structure is to blame for this. You should get paid handsomely to export when there is a lot of demand and you should not get paid at all, or even have to pay yourself for exporting when there is little demand. In other words: flexible tariffs

As for getting the family on board. I'm finally at the stage where it doesn't matter a damn what they do at what time, my system will handle it. It's a revelation to be honest as nobody in this house was ever getting on board with any of this 😂 Now they can run the dryer and washing machine and dish washer any time they want. Nothing, not a single applicance, is on timers here except car charging, water and some home heating and battery charging

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545924#Comment_121545924

Interesting about the smart plugs, I have been running dyer/washing machine/dishwasher off of them for a ages now, what is the issue doing that?

I don't bother using them during the night window however, charge at night and just use them from the battery during the day.

I think trying to time them during a 3 hour window is a PITA for all. Impossible to do washing and drying unless you feel like taking out the washing at 3am haha

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546235#Comment_121546235

Exactly. Let them use any appliance any time as often as they like. I will make sure it is powered by battery (charged with 5c night rate) as I am the one paying the bills 😂

vinniem

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546705#Comment_121546705

Unkel uve mentioned 0.5c night rate a few times, what plan are you on? Best I've got is 0.18c with EI 😊

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546741#Comment_121546741

Pinergy, the Cooline community deal. 5c + VAT during 02:00-05:00 and 25c + VAT Feed in Tariff on your exports (FIT) and you get a €100 welcome bonus. Looks like the deal is still active, sign up through this:

https://pinergy.ie/home-electricity/cooline/

vinniem

Thanks Unkel

championc

I think, anyone with appliances with mechanical time clocks / programmers, are perfectly setup to use smart plugs. The new digital ones will likely reset to off when powered on.

Yes, the newest devices now have seem to programmable delays

Jonathan

Any else missing ESBN interval data from the 26th onwards? I have up until the end of the 25th.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121552593#Comment_121552593

Same.

The ESBN portal has always been total hit and miss for me. Like it is being managed by a drunk, who is asleep on the job for days on end sometimes.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121552696#Comment_121552696

Server needs more money in the meter 😂

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121552696#Comment_121552696

Seems to have appeared over night.

Bobeagleburger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553017#Comment_121553017

He must have sobered up 😂

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553057#Comment_121553057

I don't expect much new data for January 1st for another few days 😂

ColemanY2K

As of yesterday evening I only had HDF data up to the 23rd, this morning data right up to the early hours of 30th appeared.

It seems like somebody at ESBN networks has to manually run the system for data to appear on the ESBN site. Before this mornings update it had never updated over the weekend.

SD_DRACULA

ESBN are F brutal, logged on now, says enter mprn again and of course you do that and an error is nicely presented.

MBSnr

I've recently had a smart meter installed and it's correctly reporting to ESBNetworks every 30 mins.

The new meter is listed in my SSE account and I remain on my existing 24hr flat tariff. However SSE have just emailed me for a meter reading...

Why did they not get the data from ESBNetworks or does that only occur if you move to a smart meter tariff with a provider?

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121577326#Comment_121577326

Providers only get the 30min interval data when you activate the meter. Until then, only you and ESBN have access.

daarmcd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545550#Comment_121545550

Does your battery work in a power cut