Smart meters give total control to energy suppliers – not customers

SIR – A few years ago, electricity suppliers provided monitors to show consumption. These were easy to install, and effective. Why wasn’t this technology updated and reissued?

The answer, of course, is that the Government let itself be conned by the large electricity suppliers. Monitors could not do what they needed. They wanted to control customers’ supply online totally: to read meters, change customers to pre-payment rates, make it awkward to switch supplier, and engage in “dynamic pricing” – which means increasing the cost significantly at peak periods or times of shortage. Geoff Oades

Pewsey, Wiltshire

SIR – Claire Perry, the minister for energy and clean growth, clearly doesn’t read your Letters page, to judge from her condescending remarks (Letters, August 2), which answer none of the problems that have been raised. Ian E Massie

Edinburgh SIR – Smart meters will allow rates to be varied several times a day. I look forward to my half-yearly statement; assuming three rates per day, my bill will consist of over 540 lines. This will make comparison with other suppliers impossible, and consumers will have no idea if they are being ripped off.

I suspect that, once smart meters are rolled out, bills will soar and competition will all but disappear. Ron Elliott

Whitstable, Kent

SIR – Our electricity supply is largely fixed-cost. Fossil fuel and nuclear generators cannot be turned on and off, as this is hugely expensive. The supply infrastructure is also almost entirely fixed-cost. Wind power cost is largely the same, irrespective of whether the wind is blowing.

Smart meters can reduce by a small amount consumption at peak production, and shift demand to times of surplus electricity. That brings fuel savings, but they can only be small.

They are also limited by the amount of surplus off-peak production: if we had to increase off-peak generation because people changed the times at which they used appliances, there would be extra fuel costs.

An analogy is the cost of flying somebody from London to Berlin: it is not dependent on when they bought their ticket, but the price they pay is. If fewer expensive tickets are bought, the price of the cheaper ones must rise to meet the flight’s fixed costs.

The same applies to electricity. If fewer people buy peak electricity, then the price of the cheaper kilowatt hours will have to rise, to meet the costs of the system. Tim Hammond

London SW6

SIR – So far, I have managed to avoid having a smart meter installed – because it would have to be placed some nine feet above floor level.

My supplier has been unable to find a technician who is “ladder trained”. Tony Eagleton

Chelmsford, Essex