Mercury GEM, thoughts?

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tchart

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#153637 3-Oct-2014 13:26

With this topic in mind; http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=73&topicid=120768

I've recently moved from Genesis to Mercury for electricity and gas. I always believed GEM was superior but Ive found its quite the opposite. The lack of "near real time" data is made more annoying because their website is terrible (you can view usage by day but not, week or current month) and there are no apps (that I could find).

Im left feeling a bit disappointed as the Genesis website/app offerings were rather good.

Am I wrong?

gzt

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#1146620 3-Oct-2014 14:01

I have not visited GEM for a long time. Apart from any other faults it is kind of boring. I suspect I'm in the category of people who will not find this useful until it saves me a trip outside to read/monitor the meter.

khull

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#1146646 3-Oct-2014 14:25

I don't consider Genesis Energy real time either - logging on it is about 6 days behind in consumption data.

By the way check out an earlier post about Flick Electric
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumId=141&topicId=153480

JaseNZ

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#1146853 3-Oct-2014 18:06

I had a smart meter put in just to use this service because I thought it was near real time. Yup I was wrong with it being around 5 days behind most of the time.
Unless you write everything down as you use it and wait 5 days to see if it had an effect on your power.

I never visit it any more its just a waste of time.

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Hammerer

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#1146857 3-Oct-2014 18:23

I don't know about any other products but GEM is practically useless. It wasn't a reason for joining Mercury but it is a reason not to join Mercury.

The only feature that I appreciate is Compare Bills - last period or same period last year - which is pretty basic anyway.

No new features (or even old features working better or properly) in over a year.
No way to provide comparative data from before you join. So that means you have to wait a year before you get any useful seasonal comparison.
"Similar Homes Comparison" Samples for comparing energy efficiency are too different without any way of seeing what those differences are. There's probably only a few buckets that they use and it's too bad if you're a large household in a large house.
"Usage" graph can't be compared with last year.
"Weather" has no weather data. Even if it did it is only average temperature. Sunshine hours make more difference to many people's power bills particularly if they have solar devices of any sort.

Hammerer

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#1314077 29-May-2015 12:55

Further issues arise with GEM if you have meter reading estimates. We had a few months of estimated meter readings since new smart meters were installed - I don't know why they aren't working but I have now asked. The estimates are very inaccurate even though Mercury has more than a year of actual data which could be used to make their estimate more accurate. My experience of other retailers like Genesis, Meridian and Powershop is that they used to do a much better job of estimating.

The trend tracking graphs can become virtually useless when there are one or more periods where the usage is estimated. It not only affects the periods that are estimated but the following period which picks up all the under or over estimates, and the following year when you do a bill comparison with the same period of the previous year. There is no way to update the data so it reflects actual usage, e.g. if I read my meter and have the correct data. It is at least one small mercy that the problem doesn't continue next year but that is only because there is no option to compare the trend graph for this year and last year.
The Compare Bills analysis doesn't include estimated meter readings as a reason why there is, for example, a 50% jump in power usages.
There is no option to download data so it can be uploaded into a spreadsheet and "corrected".

Also:

The GEM data is not up-to-date when you receive an emailed bill so you have to go back in another day or so if you want to do a bill comparison or track a trend.
The GEM "What Uses Most" pie chart doesn't include anything on hot water heating which is normally one of the largest single costs. Mercury says "Hot water accounts for 30% of yearly energy use for a typical household in your area" but they leave it out of the graph.

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#1314093 29-May-2015 13:12

Snap +1 my Mercury bill just came in. I had a smart meter put in by them over a year and a half ago as I thought I would be able to track my power usage. Yup a complete and utter waste of time, sometimes the data is over 5 - 7 days old so its a case of pretty much closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

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#1314102 29-May-2015 13:22

Have seen the ads for Mercury Gem and they looked good... - I've been with Contact for almost 18 months now and thou they just display very basic info, it is never more than 3 days behind...

Why cant they do actual real time data???

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#1315269 31-May-2015 22:58

Bee: Have seen the ads for Mercury Gem and they looked good... - I've been with Contact for almost 18 months now and thou they just display very basic info, it is never more than 3 days behind...

Why cant they do actual real time data???

Yeah, makes sense it should be possible with a smart meter but obviously their technology is not up to it.

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Hammerer

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#1315817 1-Jun-2015 23:47

cyberhub:
Bee: Have seen the ads for Mercury Gem and they looked good... - I've been with Contact for almost 18 months now and thou they just display very basic info, it is never more than 3 days behind...

Why cant they do actual real time data???

Yeah, makes sense it should be possible with a smart meter but obviously their technology is not up to it.

The smart meters are smart enough for the power companies but they're basically there for remote meter reading rather than the really smart real-time interaction that we consumers want. The readings are aggregated by the lines companies and passed on to the retailers in batches. There may be no real-time readings available from any retailer.

Dr Jan Wright, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, published this Parliamentary paper Smart electricity meters: How households and the environment can benefit. She says:

Smart meters have been on my radar screen for some time, and hold great promise for influencing electricity consumption. They have the potential to create a step change in curbing the growth in the demand for electricity and giving real benefits to consumers, provided they are capable of interaction in real time between electricity consumers and retailers.

Shortly after beginning this very rewarding job, I heard mutterings that the smart meters being installed in New Zealand are actually ‘dumb meters’. The concern was that the smart meters being installed would deliver benefits to retailers, but would not be able to deliver benefits to the environment or to electricity consumers. This report substantiates that concern.

Deamo

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#1316025 2-Jun-2015 11:16

Hammerer:
cyberhub:
Bee: Have seen the ads for Mercury Gem and they looked good... - I've been with Contact for almost 18 months now and thou they just display very basic info, it is never more than 3 days behind...

Why cant they do actual real time data???

Yeah, makes sense it should be possible with a smart meter but obviously their technology is not up to it.

The smart meters are smart enough for the power companies but they're basically there for remote meter reading rather than the really smart real-time interaction that we consumers want. The readings are aggregated by the lines companies and passed on to the retailers in batches. There may be no real-time readings available from any retailer.

Not necesarily the network company, more likely to be whoever the retailer has contracted with. In some areas this may be the network company, in others someone else.
I'd be surprised if any retailer has real-time readings.. we get files one a day containing readings and consumption data from the previous day.