Fair enough. The data available to me (without a smart meter) is certainly 'overkill' in many senses. My software collapses it into per minute, per hour and per day figures, and those are what I look at most.What I have, sort of suits my needs, between the indoor display and the spreadsheet I have maintained for the past three years. I weekly log E + G + W consumption, just to keep an eye on what difference my improvement measures over those years have made. The difference in comfort and consumption are quite noticeable. I just wish I had maintained the records for longer.
My only real point was that, without a smart meter, I am already getting far more data than a smart meter will ever provide - certainly in terms of the current smart meters/systems, they could not give me anything like as frequent figures, and nor would it be able to give me seoparate figures for each of my phases. So, smart meters are not necessary in order to have useful (or 'more than needed') amounts of data.
[/quote]I think what they are trying to say, is that it is possible to cut down energy bills if you have the knowledge to make use of the data it makes easily available to you. I am much more aware than I used to be.[/QUOTE]Yes, that's their argument. However, even the government only claim that the ~£11 billion 'investment' would only save £23 per year (in electricity bills) across about 36 million households - that's about £828 million per year, so over 13 years before consumers will even get back their £11 billion (which everyone will have paid for).
Looked at in terms of other figures we're being presented with, it is estimated (per EFLI's link) that each household will end up paying about £420 for deployment of smart meters - so, if the result is their saving £23 per year, it will take 18 years for them to even 'break even'.
So, depending upon what figures one uses, something between 13 and 18 years for consumers to even #break even'.
Consumers probably would have got almost as much information by their all being supplied with cheap clip-on 'energy monitors' (which a number of suppliers were doing, anyway), at a cost dramatically less than that of smart meters.
Kind Regards, John