More than 80% of New Zealand homes currently have Smart Meters connected to the supply of electricity they receive. There are many good reasons to have one and they can help you and the power company manage your energy more effectively.
Accurate Energy Measurement and Billing
The major benefit of having a Smart Meter is to get completely accurate measurement of power consumption and hence accurate customer billing.
These digital Smart Meters are a big improvement on the previous analogue meters because they measure and record energy usage at regular intervals during each day, rather than just providing a total energy consumption figure.
Analogue meters have to be ready manually whereas Smart Meters communicate digitally and automatically with your energy retailer.
The Best Electricity Plan
By knowing the way you use power throughout the day (rather than just the total amount used), your energy retailer can offer different energy plans. There is the potential to choose the plan that best meets your energy usage and will enable you to be most cost efficient, energy efficient or a combination of both.
Energy Data
The Smart Meter sends regular information back to the energy retailer. The meter will use either the same network as mobiles phones (GPRS) or a radio network (radio mesh).
Either way, these regular packets of data provide the report that enables the retailer to both bill accurately as well as making this data available through their customer webites and mobile apps.
Your personal energy data is always encrypted and is undecipherable during its transmission.
The Metering Equipment Provider (MEP) is responsible to transmit the data from the meter to the energy retailer. They identify the meter by its Installation Control Point (ICP) identifier. No personal information about you (the customer) is transmitted.
Human Health
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