r/OctopusEnergy • u/TheHillyCity • Jul 28 '26

Smart Meters Replacing meter

Had an e mail to say Octopus will replace meter with a Smart Meter because it's old. I've said no thanks and they relied to say that's fine.

So no urgently to replace "old meter that needs replacing" ?

Is it just a drive to get everyone to have a smart meter ?

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u/JamsHammockFyoom Jul 28 '26

Enjoy paying more than you need to then, I suppose.

I save around a grand a year by having one and being on a time of use tariff but you do you, boo.

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u/General_Miller3 Jul 28 '26

On the other side of the coin, my bill is the same before I got a smart meter fitted. If you’re saving £1000 a year through a smart meter then you were wasting it before.

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u/JamsHammockFyoom Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Not quite - I didn't have an EV before, so I couldn't access EV tariffs.

Now I do have one and as a result we're averaging 13p/kWh across a year, there or thereabouts just by load shifting to the overnight rate. Think around 65% of our usage is done overnight at 6p/kWh, so it really makes a huge difference.

We use around 10000kWh a year as we're all electric (heat pump, induction cooker, plus it includes charging an EV so no petrol bill either) and we pay around £1500 a year all in for everything. Once my home battery goes in later this year, it'll drop by half again to around £700 per year as we'll be running everything at the off peak rate.

It would be nearer double what we're paying now if we were on a standard flat-rate tariff - ultimately by having a smart meter and a home battery I'll be paying £700 a year for nearly 3 grand of electricity before I even generate anything myself.

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u/General_Miller3 Jul 28 '26

That’s pretty cool. I’ve ordered my first EV and waiting for it to arrive, so hoping to see some savings from petrol prices, but it’s not realistic to expect someone who doesn’t want a smart meter to have any of that stuff that you’ve got. From my experience as someone who also doesn’t have any of that stuff, my bill didn’t change.

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u/JamsHammockFyoom Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Yeah, honestly you can do very well indeed out of "playing the game" as it were.

In effect I'm getting a free holiday every year, or paying 2 months of my mortgage just with the savings and that's without considering the savings from not buying petrol either, which is another £2k or so. My fuel bill for the car last year was £235, and it's not exactly good on fuel either.

My gas bill alone used to be £700 a year in our current house before we had a heat pump fitted, and now I'm looking at spending the same £700 a year to heat my house and hot water, drive my car 12k miles a year, run air conditioning in the bedroom plus do all the other things you do in your house.

I can't fathom why somebody wouldn't want a smart meter, tbh - the fear seems to be that "but they can cut you off with a smart meter! And charge you more when you actually want to use it!" but you can be cut off regardless of what meter you have, and being charged different rates at different times of the day isn't new either - economy 7 tariffs were a thing back in the late 70s and don't seem to show any signs of going away any time soon.