Exposed: The Plan to Use Smart Meters to Deter “Immoral” Use of Heating
Research commissioned by the Government and published on its website last week has proposed to use smart meters to deter the “immoral” use of central heating. The Telegraph has the story.
Owners of energy-efficient homes were targeted by the Government with ‘nanny state’ research exploring how they could be discouraged from turning up the heating, it can be revealed.
Officials in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) wanted to know how people could be dissuaded from consuming more energy after installing Net Zero upgrades such as insulation and double glazing.
London Economics, a think tank, was tasked in February 2024, under the Conservative government, with carrying out an in-depth review of academic studies on consumer behaviour and proposed using smart meters to “circumvent habits” and introducing “environmental taxes”.
Visual prompts and “nudges” were suggested as ways to “promote pro-environmental behaviours”, such as using colours on smart meters to indicate higher heating usage, as well as stickers on new boilers.
Researchers also focused on why households might use more energy after having improved their home’s energy efficiency.
The report cited studies that blamed “moral licensing” whereby “individuals justify ‘immoral’ behaviour (such as turning up their heating) by having previously engaged in moral behaviour (such as installing energy efficient measures)”.
It noted, however, that this phenomenon “has not been widely studied or observed in the context of energy efficiency” or so-called comfort taking.
The research was published on a Government website last week. A Government spokesman insisted there were no plans to implement the report’s suggestions, which were made before the last election. The Conservatives declined to comment.
The report centred on so-called “comfort taking”, a phenomenon where energy usage goes up after a home becomes more energy efficient, rather than falling as you might expect.
It can limit the environmental benefits of green technology – potentially throwing Britain’s race to Net Zero into doubt if households “comfort take” en masse.
Worth reading in full.
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They must contact me 10 times a week telling me I need a smart meter…
Yeah, nah.
Sorry to hear that. There is hope. I had that harassment, for about 12? months, but eventually they gave up. Hope you’re nearing their “give-up point”!
It doesn’t bother me, my phone auto-declines their number and the emails go straight to spam 👍
Scottish Power tried that with me a few years ago. They give up – eventually. I send them my meter readings every month; I’m a low-energy user and I’m always in credit. There is no justification for trying to force a Smart Meter on me, and they know it.
I never understand people who run their account in credit. If you supply readings each month, easier to pay as you go. Why let energy companies make use of YOUR money?
Some energy companies have gone bust as well creating a risk of losing their customers credit. Best to minimise surplus.
“It can limit the environmental benefits of green technology – potentially throwing Britain’s race to Net Zero into doubt if households “comfort take” en masse.”
Ugh. Isn’t the tone utterly revolting? “Comfort taking”. “Race to Net Zero”: I never signed up to this “race” – did you?
It’s how things work. Once Govt have spent £ms or £bns on some stupid project (without asking us), it becomes the Way, the Truth and the Light, by virtue of the £ms or £bns sunk cost – and anyone evading or subverting it becomes a Traitor to Reality.
(see also: COVID “vaccinations”).
Soon, no doubt, we’re all also have to wear “wearable” health-monitors. So that my Monday nights – 2 hours of hard exercise, during which I drink >2l of water and sweat much of it out, followed by couple of “rehydration Sports Drinks” at the local pub – will be condemned by an obnoxious booble-beep on my wrist. “Comfort taking”. These people need to be eradicated.
[edited to add in the obvious COVID-Elixir parallel!]
Truly nauseating is the apathetic compliance of the woke wet wipes that enable the bloody government to control our lives.
So the “think tank” called London Economics says if Brits turn up the heating then we are “immoral” ???!!! Being rather a Nosey Parker, I looked up the members of this think tank, many of whom have ethnic origins in tropical countries of the Third World, so I would like to point out that they are guilty of Rank Hypocrisy, for the following reason: Years ago, some awkwardly honest types in social services (whistleblowers) revealed that Third World Ethnic immigrants from desert and tropical lands in Africa, India & the Middle East routinely keep their British home heating running full-blast almost year-round, so that they can enjoy the temperatures to which they are accustomed in the Third World, and wear their summer-weight clothing, floaty chiffon saris exposing their abdomens, or the men in paper-thin cotton outfits & flipflops swanning around the house in winter, shunning dreary, practical western clothes like Thermals, Woolie Socks, Woolie Jumpers & Polar Fleeces that normal Ethnic Europeans wear to keep warm in winter, even at home. This seems “immoral” to me, and it appears that the London Economics Think Tankers want us to turn down our heating so that THEY can keep theirs turned UP!!!… Read more »
High electricity bills are no problem for them, because their fellow Ethnics always gravitate toward the financial departments of every organization, so “Naga from Accounts” will do some creative accounting on their bills, for a small fee. They also know how to claim “help” with paying their bills from the taxpayers, who will just be charged more by the energy companies to pay for all those who refuse to pay.
The only immoral thing about heating is the idea that government should ever consider it their business to restrict such that people are forced to live in cold homes. As a nation blessed with well over four hundred years of coal beneath our feet, God knows how many hundreds of years of gas and oil I can only rage at the sheer hubris of those involved in this madness.
The ultimate purpose of government is to make life as easy and pleasant as possible for as many as possible. Any divergence from this single goal is failure in itself and those involved in such failure deserve banishment as an absolute minimum.
What I can declare with absolute certainty is that government pressure will always have the opposite outcome to that which it seeks where I am concerned. Or to put it bluntly …
Government can F R O !
So central is immoral now. Maybe we will all be issued with a hair shirt to keep us warm. Twunts.
Anyone might think that the energy saving measures had not actually reduced energy consumption at all!
This type pf meter (there is one at my place) does create opportunities like this. They have the ability to meter every 30 minutes, and technically they could attempt to use variable pricing, rather than just twin rate (7 hours at night rate) pricing. Same with gas, although the firm I use has a single rate for gas.
I don’t have a smart meter, thankfully. If I did, I’d cover the damn think with foil, or whatever was needed to block signals.
Wrap it in lead
Fuse have never contacted me about having a ‘smart’ meter. I think they consider it a waste of money as they run a minimalist operation with the only contact be the regular first of the month reading request.
Those bloody conspiracy theorists were right again!
ah so the moral use of energy is dictated by the WEF and Agenda 2050
Supply everyone in the UK with a woollen beanie.
The Monster Raving Looney Party would be on board with that!
I don’t know why there is anxiety about ‘immoral’ use of heating. Given the current costs of home comfort no-one, except the wealthy, and MPs whose bills we subsidise, can afford heating other than a few short hours a day.
So it’s now “immoral” to have your heating set to a level where you feel comfortable? I wonder what else might count as “immoral”? Sitting on padded furniture? Eating things that taste nice? Using electricity to watch television? Having the lights on?
This will be Covid all over again. The Cameron-Clegg “nudge unit” (aka propaganda department) will press the vulnerable to sacrifice their comfort and maybe their lives for Gaia.
W⚓️ers
“The report centred on so-called “comfort taking”, a phenomenon where energy usage goes up after a home becomes more energy efficient, rather than falling as you might expect.” Insulation is not a heat source. In any case. What you might expect is when people think their home is leaking less heat, they will turn the heat up because it won’t cost them as much. Just like installing “energy efficient” light bulbs means you can have more lights on and not worry about switching them off because they cost a pittance to run – we are told – and will last 20 million years before they need replacing. It’s called Human nature and “free agency” – we don’t have to behave in the way those in authority decide or expect. Adam Smith wrote about “The Man of System”: He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every… Read more »
ECO BLACKMAIL——-I have been trying to warn friends and family that the purpose of the smart meter is not what they all seem to think. A few family members have fallen for the excuse that they should get a smart meter because they will no longer have an estimated bill. The real purpose is ENERGY RATIONING, because getting rid of affordable reliable energy from fossil fuels means there will be much less energy available.
The former head of the National Grid (Steve Holiday) even warned some years ago that “we are going to have to get used to using electricity as and when it is available”
So we are all to have ON DEMAND PRICING which discourages use at busy times and when there might not be any wind by charging more.
This latest “immoral” use of energy nonsense is just another variation of the same stop us using energy SCAM, and the excuse for the immorality is that we are allegedly causing climate change. The greatest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated.