[SSM UK] It’s said that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” (TANSTAAFL) – and for a company that made £1.58bn profit in the first six months of this year – having raised prices to customers by 6% last November – the free lunch appears to be on you (thanks!).
Barely a week after we exposed that British Gas’s Smart Metering campaign is built on a lie, customers are again set to be lured into the Smart Meter trap with a promise of ‘free energy’ on a Saturday.
Sounds too good to be true, right? You know what they say about that. Will this scheme save you money? Well consider how BG’s prices were ramped up last year to protect profits, and then think about how much more customers with Smart Meters are likely to end up paying on the other six days of the week to protect BG’s balance sheet and institutional shareholders.
TANSTAAFL: a plan for a new economic world order. (Pierre Dos Utt, 1949) describes an oligarchic political system based on his “no free lunch” principles
Are you prepared to wait until Saturdays to wash, shower, or cook your breakfasts, lunches and dinners? How about watching TV, using your computer? If so, what price to your health, privacy, safety and security will you be paying by being lumped with an intrusive surveillance device in your property which emits in excess of 43,000 pulses of intense microwave radiation per day?
Don’t forget that deals like this don’t last forever – but once you fall for the Smart Meter shell game, you could be stuck with it for good. Think about it and then exercise your lawful right to refuse one. [/]
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British Gas has said it is planning to offer free power on Saturdays to some of its customers.
The idea is to encourage them to use more of their electricity at the weekend when there is less demand from businesses, according to the BBC’s industry correspondent John Moylan .
The scheme would be available to its one million UK customers who have smart meters.
British Gas is understood to have already started piloting the scheme.
The energy firm plans a bigger pilot later in the year and the scheme could be offered to consumers from 2014.
The roll-out of smart meters is at an early stage in the UK, but Centrica claims that it has installed more of them than the rest of the industry put together.
The parent company, Centrica, already offers the scheme – called Free Power Saturday – in its Direct Energy operations in Texas and the north-east of the United States.
Under the scheme, customers get 24 hours of free electricity every Saturday by agreeing to switch more of their usage to the weekend.
Read more at BBC News – British Gas plans to offer free power on Saturdays.
Thanks for reposting this!
I’ve recently thought that part of the whole smart meter nonsense might be this: to get people fixating on and worrying about energy use ALL THE TIME. Yet another way of invading people’s thoughts and “mindspace” and causing constant worry and financial paranoia over just living a daily life.
There was a glaring contradiction in the British Gas video (https://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/the-new-british-gas-smart-meter-campaign-built-on-a-lie/). Earlier on they said you can see which appliances you’ll want to switch off, and then later on they said about appliances being controllable from a smart phone — i.e. constantly on standby or transmitting/receiving data! Who the heck has any use for a remote control fridge or toaster anyway?!
🙂
Indeed Johnny.
“Who the heck has any use for a remote control fridge or toaster anyway?!” – That would be the company you previously only thought of as an energy supplier which now has the means to control appliances through their insidious spy meters. Say NO and please warn others!
‘free energy’ on a Saturday.
Don’t count on it.
That will be the day the power grid is shut down to save money then! Oh sorry didn’t you read the small print etc.etc. Sounds like our wonderful rail network. Plenty of cheap tickets at weekends which is when most of the line maintenance takes place and you get to travel by bus instead.
Surely consumers must have the right to reject smart meters. How can the government insist on smart meters not being replaced with analogue ones? This surely constitutes a gross breach of civil liberties and consumer rights.
Our gummerment is worried about OFGEM’s warnings about the winters of 2015/16 and 2016/17. Trouble is, power stations are closing faster than OFGEM planned as well. Now, because neoliberal policies rely on state funding to get any strategic policy moving, regardless of direction, the gummerment has already consulted about a premium payment scheme to get business to save energy. Its complexity and financialisation seems to be modelled on the brilliantly successful Green Deal. Point is that the BG initiative is about cutting weekday demand. Gosh, if the lights did go out, that would be emabarrassing for a gummerment that believes the market can do everything and anything.