I've looked at dozens of links to smart meters and none are definitive regards costs. All that say is there is no up front payment and that the costs will be added to everyone's' bill and that those costs will be about £100 per household.
The cost is built in to the cost of energy per unit, can't remember the last bill I had, just pay by DD and any shortfall/excess is adjusted later. I checked a few sites, this is one
So, everyone pays regardless of whether you take them up on it?
That £100 smart meter cost just gets divvied up and spread over many bills? Gosh, that must amount to a whopping tenner a year then.
If you have a pre payment meter, you will more than likely pay more per unit for energy, therefore pay more for the "environmental charges", and as poorer people are more likely to be on a PP meter, they are being penalised more. Not sure now, but the green tax was only levied on customers of suppliers with more than X amount of customers, so smaller suppliers would be cheaper. As more customers switch to the smaller suppliers, they then have to levy the tax, and they then become uncompetitive, customers switch again, and suppliers go bust.
That is per year, not a one off.
Correct.
Do you mean England or Scotland or NI or Wales ? Don't think where you live in England/Scotland/Wales makes a difference for gas or electricity, fuel oil maybe, and may be different in NI.Bad debtors may have a pre payment fitted with increased prices charged to claw back what is owed.
Do you believe crooked people should refuse smart meters so that they can better screw the energy companies with impunity?
Pre payment meters don't have to be smart meters. Smart meters can be turned off remotely for bad debt(or for any reason the supplier sees fit), just as a normal meter can be turned off and isolated manually for bad debt. It (disconnection)doesn't happen that often.
Get him to switch suppliers, I do every so often, save a lot more than having a smart meter(which would be 0).
