Without sounding like one of Carl Marx’s students I think water and energy shouldn’t be in the hands of free enterprise. So “fixing” your energy costs is relevant if the system isn’t fixed. I’ll get my hat now. 
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Are there any suppliers left that don’t have daily standing charges?
Agreed, were I in charge then utilities are brought back under UK control. They’d probably still be sht (especially the rivers) but it would be our own sht and I feel public opinion would be more effective in their not-for-profit improvement potential.
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A daft ‘Smart meter’ question - are the meters themselves independently powered somehow or do they need to be powered from a 3 pin socket - should I eventually want them there are no suitable sockets where either the Gas or Electricity meters are housed.
Appreciate the consumer ‘display devices’ would probably need a socket to power them.
No they just replace your existing meter, powered i guess off the mains……not sure who gets the bill. They need to-pick up a reasonable mobile signals to transfer the data.
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While I could potentially envisage an electric smart meter powering itself and hopefully being powered before the actual meter stage so you don’t pay for it to work, I can’t quite see how a smart gas meter could do this unless they had some long acting battery and only updated readings very occasionally, but that wouldn’t fit with a live consumer display either.
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Smart meters, at least in my limited experience, are powered by the mains, but the power they use is allegedly not metered. Gas meters use non-replaceable batteries that are supposed to last about 10 years.
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Well I do know who picks up the bill:
The electricity smart meter is powered from the incoming mains supply and it is from the unmetered side, so the electricity supplier pays. But it is a trivially small amount.
The gas smart meter is powered by a battery that is intended to last ten years before it needs changing. The gas supplier would supply and fit the battery free of charge. It’s not one you could change yourself.
The in home display (IHD) is powered from a normal three pin mains socket. It has a small rechargeable battery in it, but that only lasts for about an hour, so the whole unit is intended to be plugged in all the time. The home owner pays for the electricity. Again it’s a trivial amount and also it’s optional, in the sense that the IHD isn’t actually part of the smart metering system, but merely displays for the householder information that the smart meter has collected. So you can use the IHD or not, as you prefer.
Gas meters send meter readings to the Communications hub that is attached to the electricity meter. Gas readings are every half hour. The electricity readings are every 5 minutes. You can choose for those two meter readings to be daily (or I think even monthly) if you want to.
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Thanks, that’s how I thought it might work.
Interestingly, or not, I may be redefining what I used to consider as trivial/minor electric usage given we all probably have so many low powered gadgets these days, and they’ll all add up.
I’ve started measuring a few devices around the house again and am plugging info into a spreadsheet.
EDITED! Spreadsheet error which should have been obvious meant original figures were 3x too high.
My work laptop when on seems to draw between 35-60W, so if I leave it on 24/7 as I often do to access stuff urgently without slow booting/fiddly VPN connections which often fail to initialise, it’s potentially costing me between £98 and £167 per annum so even assuming it’s in use 40 hours at most ( in a 168 hour week) then by actually turning it off I should be able to reduce those costs by around 75%!
Just considering nominal usage her hour:
5W £13.94 per annum
10W £27.88 per annnum
25W £69.70 per annum
40W £111.52 per annum
Quite sobering when I used to completely ignore usage for devices using 5-10W years ago, but it doesn’t seem that long ago that costs had only just reached double figures in pence per kWh.
With so many of these small devices eg Amazon Echo/Echo/ Dot/Fire, USB chargers, AppleTVs, modems/routers/switches/wifi access points it soon mounts up.
Did you work out the annual cost of your system?
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Glad you asked as I’ve just spotted an error in one part of the spreadsheet which is encouraging as it was increasing calculated annual costs x3 for some items! Dangers of copy and paste!
I started doing some measurements in 2021 but have made a few configuration changes, so it’s on the to do list again, and I can’t find the old thread where I posted various consumption figures.
Using 2021 measurements I know that 2 x olive NAP 250 on 24/7 use around 21 W/h each and barely any more when music is playing.
Not sure how the error crept in, but thankfully they now cost me £58.55 each per annum, not £148.40 each which was looking concerning.
Not really a surprise…
What that the Union went back to work or prices are falling?
That a deal was found.
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Price cap to come down in October.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/08/energy-bills-to-fall-as-new-price-cap-is-announced—what-you-ne/
Did you calculate the running cost of your Supercap in isolation?
When I was still working, I would switch the Supercap (and the Nap135’s) off for a few days as I didn’t use the system on my working days. I found doing this seemed to reduce our electricity consumption by approximately 2kwh/day, although other factors may have been involved.
Since I retired, I have tended to keep the Supercap on 24/7 again, although I don’t, of course,have the 135’s, and turn the ATC40’s on and off as and when I use the system.
Oh good. Then I’ll come off my fixed deal today as I’m well within my 2 week cooling off period.
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No I’ve not done that, I’ll do it at some stage, I wonder if the SC uses more energy powering something like a 252 via a Burndy vs the more basic connectivity to the 282. If the SC does use considerably more power than the old HICAPs it might well be something to consider powering down.
Turning the Supercap off powers down the pre-amp and these take the longest to warm up.
I believe that these are the accepted running costs of high spec Naim kit.
You do use your LP12 even though the stylus wears every time you do so. It’s roughly a quid per album with a Krystal!
Save money and ditch the vinyl! 
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Yes, primarily why I tend to leave stuff on, and have done so with Naim kit for decades, plus an assumption that power cycling items frequently may lead to premature failures either mechanically or electrically though that may be tosh.
If I’m not likely to use the equipment for several days it may be sensible to power down, but unless away from home on leave that’s difficult to predict so it tends to stay on.
The energy usage figures are an 'itch to scratch’ however, especially for components and non hi-fi stuff I’ve not tested before - our electric bills are quite high, so it’s sensible to have an insight into what’s costing what.
System warm up to sound its best/stable would likely to be regarded as bonkers by the average person along with cable burn-in!
I agree but we know styli are consumables and expect to replace them, the calculations however put the playback cost into perspective. At least I guess there are far cheaper good quality cartridges available if you decide that cost isn’t justifiable.
I’ve often wondered about ditching the vinyl for several reasons but am unlikely to do so. Storage space for LPs is not insignificant either, I’d love to have a minimalist house layout but I’m ultimately too much of a hoarder.
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