In these current times of austerity, every one of us is keeping an eagle eye on the money we spend and finding ways to cut costs and reduce outgoings. One of our biggest household expenses is gas and electricity with the cost of running the average household in Britain standing at approximately £1335 – Dual fuel Bill. (Ofgem Oct 2011)
Smart meters are one potential way to drag down those hefty bills, they can help improve the efficiency of your usage, enabling customers to make more informed decisions by seeing consumption of energy such as by appliances, heating and lighting of the home.
The installation of a smart meter in every home and business across Great Britain will be a major undertaking; it was agreed following lengthy consultation by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Ofgem and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (GEMA). The government agreed that there would be a comprehensive programme incorporating all domestic households and all small to medium non-domestic dwellings.
British gas are certainly flying the flag for smart meters, as one of the UK’s leading energy efficient supplier they have also installed solar panels, ground source heat pumps and combined heat and power boilers to over 1.5 million homes in the last 5 years. To date British Gas have successfully fitted over 120,000 smart meters free of charge, a fantastic achievement but only a fraction of the 1.5 million they hope to have installed by the end of 2012 and the 10 million by 2019. British Gas are taking a phased approach to installation and will first tackle homes where existing meters have come to the end of the life.
So, what is a smart meter and what benefits will it bring?
The wireless, touch screen meter has an in-home display and enables you to see the amount of gas and electricity you consume in real time, that’s by the hour, day, week and year; in addition and possibly more importantly, the meter will tell you exactly what your usage is costing you. The information relating to your usage is automatically forwarded to your supplier; readings are recorded every half hour and forwarded to your supplier once every 24 hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtvHViwpc-A&feature=relmfu
Gone are the days of estimated bills, in simple terms you’ll pay for exactly what you use, no more building a reserve with your supplier, the cash will remain safely in your pocket rather than theirs.
The meter can be plugged in anywhere in your home, ideally it should be somewhere you can cast your eye over with relative ease, this will ensure you are alerted to any major fluctuations in usage and push you to questions what can be switched on or off.
The meter will enable you to take more control of your usage and manage your home in a more cost effective manner. It’s a very common sense approach, if you’re unaware how much your central heating is costing you, you may be inclined to leave it running continuously during these cold winter months, on the other hand, with the information a smart meter provides you could be more willing to pull on that Christmas jumper and rely less on those radiators.
It’s the simple changes that could make savings, things like ensuring mobile phone chargers, lap tops and PC’s are switched off, only boiling the amount of water you need rather than a full kettle and switching off lights in rooms that are not in use.
Smart meters will play a key role in Britain’s move to be a low carbon economy and will certainly support the need to have an affordable, sustainable energy supply in the longer term. The government has set 2019 as the target for all British homes to have a smart meter so make sure you get yours.
This is a sponsored post on behalf of British Gas. For further information on British Gas Smart Meters visit http://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/smart-meters.html
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