Smart Meters - Installation - Big Brother - The Law

Hello all

Smart Meters - Good Idea BUT big brother and his siblings may also be monitoring/watching

I do suspect are colleagues here are a little apprehensive of having them installed - I Am - I would have them fitted but as we know each of our houses appliances leaves a specific fingerprint, hence - **I know what your doing and when ** OK got that of my chest - True!!?? mmmm

So is there anyone that knows can I have say a Gas/Elect Smart meter fitted in series with my Diaphragm PD/ Electric meter for my use only with no internet/WiFi connection…joe

As I see it, the place your data will be vulnerable is inside your energy supplier’s system. Why try to hack your Wi-Fi when, although it would be harder even with the help of an insider, they can get the data for thousands of users from one central place?

You could try, say, asking the meter owner and/or your supplier to indemnify you against loss arising from a data loss, but I can’t see you getting anywhere.

I don’t see how a second meter will solve your problem. The easy and cheap way is to look at the Smart Meter and write the numbers in a notebook. But there’s nothing to stop you having your own meter, whichever utility it is.

Hi Robert - Not sure what your trying to tell me - at the moment I don’t have a Gas Smart Meter but would like one fitted for my use only ( is that possible or lawful for that matter ) there would be a slight - flowing - pressure drop say 0.5mb to my gas appliances but it would give me a remote live consumption reading - but not sure if my energy supplier would allow it ( would they ) Not absolutely sure if I could purchase one anyway - if I could and it it is fitted by a gas safe engineer down stream of my suppliers meter can anyone see a problem with such an installation…joe

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You need to look at the thread A taste of things to come? - UK smart meter data access
Somewhere in there I think I’ve seen something about who is allowed access to the encryption keys that the Smart Meter uses to send the data. I got the impression that they are closely guarded, though you might be able to buy your own meter with its own keys.

As far as I know (bearing in mind I’m an electrical engineer, not a gas man), as long as your installation uses approved fittings and is done by an approved person, you can have what you like. But you really need to speak with whoever is likely to do the installation and knows the regulations, and I suspect it’s likely the installer will have to buy the meter, as they are likely to refuse to sell it directly to you.

Thanks for the Heads Up ( as they are apt to say over the pond) will look into the buying and fitting of a SM and report back in time…joe

It’s possible to buy a Smart Meter on the open market, @no2sm . There’s also no reason why you couldn’t ask a qualified electrician and Gas-Safe registered engineer to fit them in series with your existing non-Smart meter.
However, the only data you’ll get is from their inbuilt displays.

The data available to your chosen UK energy supplier is sent to them via the Wide Area Network operated either by Telefonica or Arqiva (depending on where you live). That data is sent to the Data Communications Company, a government wholly-owned company. The data is always encrypted, as are the Smart Meter commands.
Your Energy Supplier can request DCC to send commands to meters owned by their customers, and to retrieve data from them. But there is an encrypted pathway through which those requests are sent.

At your end of the system, it is the Communications Hub which handles the encryption system. This bolts on top of the electricity meter. The Comms Hub also operates as a ‘gas proxy’, handling commands and data on behalf of your gas meter. That’s due to power-saving measures within the Smart Gas Meters which allow them to awake once every half-hour to communicate with the Comms Hub.

So in short, I can see no benefit with having your own Smart Meters installed.
But feel free to re-clarify what you want to achieve, and I’ll re-assess my answer!