Genesis want to upgrade Power Meter by Vector to smart meter. Benefit or not?

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Genesis want to upgrade Power Meter by Vector to smart meter. Benefit or not?

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DaveDog

336 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2892162 25-Mar-2022 17:18

Why would you want to do this - I'm also sure that if they wanted Genesis could choose to not supply you with electricity too...

The powerboard may belong to the homeowner, but the meter upon it most certainly does not.

gregmcc:

Handle9: Interesting point.

It still remains that the OP has already granted Genesis the right to upgrade the meter and access the property.

Genesis terms and conditions
6.5 Advanced meters

We may, at any time, replace the meter at your premises with an advanced meter . You agree that you will not object to us , or prevent us from, replacing your meter with an advanced meter .

That may be correct, but the OP can rescind that access any time they like.

companies can have clauses like this in contracts, but should push come to shove it would be very difficult for them to enforce this and it won't be a genesis person who comes out to change the meter, it will be a contracted company and their employed electrician who would be very reluctant to do work on any installation (meter board) if there was a note detailing that a formal complaint to the EWRB would happen.

I had this problem a few years ago with Genesis, they ignored my emails, their contractor turned up to change the meter and saw the letter, they declined to do the job and there was no further contact from Genesis regarding this.

At the end of the day the meter board belongs to the OP, not the power retailer, the OP gets to say what happens or does not happen on their property no matter what T&C's a company may try to impose

rugrat

3108 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2892210 25-Mar-2022 17:25

freitasm:

I'd apply Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Also, 20 years ago.

Yes there was probably more a technical reason more then revenue gathering. The dishonest part was to how they tried to flog me off on phone, or reasons that made no sense.

I’d expect their systems to be more advanced and fine tuned today. And sure there would be someone who would know how to check on it, so would get caught.

Change for the better would never happen if worry to much about what may go wrong.

Danite

42 posts

Geek

#2893286 28-Mar-2022 22:02

I dont know the ins and out of the legalities of it but I did a 4 week stint changing meter for a company that paid big bucks as they were about to lose the contract. at the time they pointed to this as the reason for changing the meter. This was back in 2008ish that I did it.

https://www.ea.govt.nz/consumers/what-are-electricity-meters/does-my-meter-need-to-be-recertified/

I think if push came to shove in the situation above they could choose to not sell you electricity though a uncertified meter unless you were registered as dependant? Though I don't know if it would ever get to that point due to bad publicity..

Edit: Though in your case I couldn't see this applying as your metering setup would have been certified at the time the meter was previously upgraded and wouldn't be due.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

Uber Geek

#2893353 29-Mar-2022 08:51

freitasm:

If anything, I think a smart reader is fairer than estimates - with estimates you risk paying a lot more one month because of a previous average, without the need. A smart meter will always give the exact reading every day. I rather have that than an estimate that most only benefits the company.

Exactly and at that point, you are in fact a creditor (unsecured) of sorts to the power company (because you have prepaid for some electricty). They don't know that so they don't have to list the liability in their balance sheet. This is called off-sheet-borrowing.

It's an accountant's dream, basically a rolling slush fund of prematurely earned cash. Could easily have been a few million for a larger power company.

Mike

SpookyAwol

626 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2893370 29-Mar-2022 09:39

Just as an aside, I have an import/export smart meter for solar. It seems the import side of things is regular and accurate, however I queried the export values when they were 200kwh different over a month. My inverter values matched their meter values, yet between the smart meter and accounting, 200kwh disappeared.
The initial suggestion (apart from maybe a fault at my end) was that the value was possibly estimated.
It seemed odd that a smart meter would need to estimate one value and not the other......
However, they came back with a credit and no real explanation.
If you have a solar export smart meter, Id be keeping an eye on the data......

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