No breaker between meter and consumer unit

Our installers carry tails on the van. If you want to supply you need 25mm2 double insulated.

Not all smart meters have pulse output. As an alternative look at a "Consumer Access Device" from Hildebrand, Chameleon or Geo. These are the approved methods to get data from the meter to you.

The supplier might initially refuse but legally they have to pair it for you, if you buy an approved model.

OwainDIYer said:

it's fitted so if you don't pay your bill they can put the meter remotely into prepay mode to collect the debt, and if you don't pay up the lights go off.

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That's what people seem to fear but my understanding is that all suppliers have given an undertaking that they would not do this, presumably to protect themselves legally. If injury/death results from an electrical installation being de-activated (or re-activated) as a result of of a power cut due to a fault, then no-one can usually be 'blamed', but if that happens as a result of a deliberate remote action, then either the supplier or even the individual who 'pressed the button' could be in serious legal trouble.

Even without 'smart' meters, suppliers obviously have the ability to disconnect (and re-connect) supplies in the circumstances you mention, but they require the physical presence (at/near the installation) of supplier personnel, so do not carry the same potential risks of sudden 'unexpected' de-activation or re-activation. The only difference is that such procedures are 'much easier' (for the supplier) if they can be done remotely - but, as above, my understanding is that they have agreed not to do that.

Kind Regards, John

luckily, we can trust privatised utilities vever to act wrongfully or to make a mistake.


oooops

Sorry Mr Brown of 27 Woodfield Place. We meant Mrs Browne of 27 Woodfield Avenue.

JohnD said:

luckily, we can trust privatised utilities vever to act wrongfully or to make a mistake.

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We can probably trust privatised utilities to never act more wrongfully, or make more mistakes, than a nationalised equivalent!

Kind Regards, John

We regularly put indebted customers into pre-pay mode remotely, but never without agreeing it with them first. They get a call from the debt team, and if they agree they get a couple of weeks where they aren't disconnected. It's not a surprise to them!

The meters are also set not to disconnect at night, at the weekend or on a bank holiday. Not disconnecting at night is to avoid the safety issue you mentioned - we don't want the lights getting turned off when someone is half way up the stairs with a cup of tea.

JohnD said:

luckily, we can trust privatised utilities vever to act wrongfully or to make a mistake.


oooops

Sorry Mr Brown of 27 Woodfield Place. We meant Mrs Browne of 27 Woodfield Avenue.

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I live on a 'main' road in the country and our semi detached and the semi detached adjacent are known as XXXXX Cottages, XXXXXX Road, etc It is also an A class road which we often quote in correspondence to couriers/website purchasers etc
400 hundred yards or so up the road is a small, single track, cul-de-sac which goes by the same name as our house but the name of the road is XXXXX Place
Invariably a delivery van, (and even ambulances we have called), will go up this cul-de-sac then have to reverse out as there is very little space to turn around.
Couriers have even claimed to have delivered a parcel to the correct address and after 'discussions' with their base we had had a call back to say it is still on the van!

So power companies wrongly cutting supplies are no surprise to me.

conny said:

.... Couriers have even claimed to have delivered a parcel to the correct address and after 'discussions' with their base we had had a call back to say it is still on the van! ... So power companies wrongly cutting supplies are no surprise to me.

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Albeit for somewhat different reasons, we are in a similar position to you, in that (even with a postcode) many people either have difficulties finding our house or, like you, think they have found it when they have found somewhere else. On top of that, a significant proportion of our mail only gets to us (again, despite postcodes) after having had a journey to, and then back from, a village about 30 miles away (in a different county) with name (and some street names) the same as ours - I therefore certainly understand people and companies 'mis-identify' properties at times.

However, that's not quite what we are talking about here. If (as traditionally) an electricity company was disconnecting the supply in a manner which required them to physically find and attend the property, it would be strange, rather irresponsible and possibly even dangerous to do so without making some contact with the occupier of the property whose supply they were about to disconnect (who presumably would 'put them right' if it was the wrong property!).

The concerns being discussed here were that 'Smart' meters afford, at least technologically, a means of 'remote' disconnection which does not require them to go anywhere near the property. However, even if they did that, my understanding is that it would be done on the basis of the MPAN number, not a physical address (but they could obviously get that wrong, too - which is perhaps one reason why companies have said that they won't do remote disconnection)

In any event, as you will have seen, my response to JohnD's comment to which you have also now responded was that, contrary to what he implied, my experience is that government-related organisations (government departments/agencies, nationalised industries) are at least as capable of making mistakes and getting things wrong as are "privatised utilities"!

Kind Regards, John

Not long ago a utility team of diggers arrived to open up the road for a new electrical connection to a house. The crew saw lights on in the house and got in touch with their office before starting to dig........Error discovered

They were in XXXXXXX Street, the new house was in XXXXXXX Square Sq had been entered as St on all the paper work

Plans issued to the crew were for XXXXXXX Street

bernardgreen said:

Not long ago a utility team of diggers arrived to open up the road for a new electrical connection to a house. The crew saw lights on in the house and got in touch with their office before starting to dig........Error discovered

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That's obviously how it should be. Errors/mistakes happen, and hopefully get discovered and corrected.

Kind Regards, John