Victoria will lead the national roll-out of smart meters with its 2.5 million homes and businesses the first to be equipped with the infrastructure. You can find more information on the Smart Meter website: http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/smart-meters.
You would think that replacing manual reading with an electronic one will save you money but you might be surprised. This year the consumer will pay $68.00 extra (officially but they added $23 plus GST to my electricity bill for a 3 months period) for the privilege of having such a smart meter installed. Additionally the Victorian government will spend 2 billion dollars financing the project.
I talked to a guy who used to work as a meter reader and averaged to take readings of 500 meters a day, that’s less than a dollar a meter in a metropolitan area, that’s $4 a year for quarterly bills. I understand that previously service to property charge included manual readings of the meters so why are we paying now extra for the new meters, shouldn’t that be done by energy companies to save them money in the future?
There are other services provided and metered: water and gas, is the government planning to introduce smart water and gas meters and at our cost?
Couldn’t the manual reading of all the existing meters have been simplified and made more cost effective, I saw 3 different guys reading 3 different meters? They will lose their jobs, we will pay more, and the government will spend 2 billion dollars of our money. Where is the logic in it?
Smart meter – another “brilliant” and costly idea of our govenment.
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