The Saga of the Smart Power Meter

[jayeless]

A few years ago, the Victorian government launched a program to try to replace all the state's “dumb” power meters – the ones that an actual person needs to visit every three months to record manually how much power has been used – with smart meters, that can transmit usage information near-instantaneously. When I moved into this flat in 2015, I was confused as to why every single other unit had had its meter upgraded to a smart one, while mine alone still had the traditional dumb meter. I wanted to be able to keep a close eye on my power usage so I could see, for example, which appliances/heaters/etc. were wasting power and thus worth replacing, and so I could also be stingier with my power usage if I noticed I was cruising towards a larger bill than I wanted. But because I was stuck with the dumb meter, the only way to keep an eye on this was to actually go to the meter (which was located inside the carport of a different unit, btw) and check the readings myself.

By the end of 2016, the Victorian government was proudly declaring that “All households* in the state are now equipped with smart power meters!” and I still didn't have one. (The asterisk basically led to a clarification that went, “All households except the ones where upgrading the meter was a bit difficult.”) Anyway, a few months ago I found my energy retailer (a different privatised company from my energy supplier) had a form on their site where you could ask to have your dumb meter upgraded, so foolish me, I thought I'd submit that form.

What followed was a couple of months of really painful back-and-forth between me and my energy supplier, United Energy. This is a company that does not believe putting nearly anything in writing, and instead they only ever call you from private numbers at random times and make you struggle to understand their call centre workers over one of the grainiest, poorest-quality telephone lines I have ever had the misfortune of trying to cope with. So that was already not fun.

But then my problems got worse. My existing set-up involved having two meters: one for hot water, and one for everything else. United Energy did not want to deal with this. They wanted me to pay for my own electrician to combine the existing dumb meters onto one single, consolidated meter before they would replace it. They also never mentioned this to me until the very appointment where they were supposed to do the actual replacement, and I got a scandalised scolding, like “How could you not have done this already???? How can we replace two meters with only one meter????” Once we got to the second scolding on the phone, I asked when they had told me in writing that this merger needed to take place. That's when the guy went silent, and went, “Uhhhhhh… ummmm… I need to talk to my supervisor, I'll get back to you…”

Something like a month later, I got an email back from my energy retailer (NOT the supplier I'd been having this back-and-forth with), saying that the upgrade had been unable to proceed because “an electrician is required to rewire the panel to make it compliant and safe”. (News to me that there might have been any safety issues!)

A month after that, I got a generic letter from the supplier saying they were doing another sweep in the area to upgrade some of the meters they'd missed in the previous 3+ sweeps, and since mine was one of those, I should expect an upgrade! Yeah, great. I made an effort to try to get in an electrician, but he was on holiday, and at any rate he thought United Energy was trying it on, trying to make me pay for works (that he said could be quite expensive) that they are legally required to cover themselves. So whatever, I didn't really pursue that.

And then, what do you know… today I received an email from the electricity retailer, telling me they've updated my account with my new smart meter details, and I can now log in to view all the information it's been generating!!

So basically… United Energy spent months dicking me around, communicating demands poorly over their abysmal telephone connection, demanding that I pay for electrical works, when all along they were fully and entirely capable of just completing the job themselves. Ughhhhhh.

Overall, as if there weren't enough reasons to rue the privatisation of the state's electricity system, this is blatantly it. Just imagine if we still had the SEC instead of this penny-pinching pack of fuckos. I mean, I'm obviously happy that this matter has been resolved without me having to pay anything out of pocket, but whyyyy did I have to deal with so much bullshit and patronising scoldings before they just did the exact thing I asked them to do in the first place without bothering me? It's a mystery!

Comments

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

God, that sounds awful. And their poor attitude about everything just makes the unprofessionalism worse.