The benefit:
Is to be able to be remotely switched off. When the electricity company feels like it. Ostensibly so that they can make their renewable plans work without needing to buy any expensive (and inefficient) energy storage devices like Electric Mountain, or (heaven forbid) actual baseload generation capacity (ie their job). Also it comes in very handy when you haven't paid your bill on time.
When the majority of people have "smart" meters then they can implement this plan, and give cheaper tariffs (read: a massive price hike for nearly everybody) to people who don't mind being switched off every now and then (i.e. in the middle of EastEnders, or when the sun goes behind a cloud). If you moan about being switched off then well you should have paid extra, and you shouldn't be watching that drivel anyway, or you should be streaming it on your ipad on 3G.
So in summary, WHAT exactly are YOU doing that needs such a reliable and therefore WASTEFUL energy supply? Washing your clothes you say? Only rich people wash their clothes - you can afford to pay the premium. Perhaps you'd like to buy an energy efficient kettle?
It really is a sorry state of affairs, privatised electricity generation in the UK. We should've stuck with the Ministry of Power, and invested in research into newer, cleaner, cheaper nuclear power, rather than cancelling all the programmes and building privately run coal and gas plants.
Meanwhile we have regulated the pants off of nuclear, making it ridiculously expensive and making everyone scared of it (meanwhile more radioactivity is pumped out by coal plants than nuclear, never mind all the rest of the shite that fossil fuels dump into the air, and vastly more people are killed by wind farms, despite the tiny fraction of energy generation that they currently provide!)
The only people who benefit (aside from the energy companies as above) are the likes of Siemens who make the infernal things, and charge a fortune and make a fortune, knowing that they are subsidised by both the bill-payer and the tax-payer, i.e. you and me and me and you!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
