£11bn smart meter farce: Even energy boss admits they’re not all that smart!

MANY households will be given out-ofdate smart energy meters under the £11billion programme to introduce them nationally, the boss of one of the country’s biggest electricity firms revealed yesterday.

Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF Energy, said the plans faced ‘many challenges’ and that this could pose a threat to ‘public confidence’ in the programme.

The project is intended to fit 26million homes across the UK with smart meters by 2020, allowing energy consumption information to be sent directly to suppliers.

But problems with the communication infrastructure means many customers will not get the best ‘next generation’ meters, Mr De Rivaz said.

Instead, they will get inferior meters that cost more and make it harder to switch suppliers, he revealed.

Around two million ‘first generation’ smart meters – codenamed SMETS 1 – have already been installed.

Some users have complained that when they try to switch to different suppliers, the meters no longer work. In effect, after switching supplier the equipment reverts to being a conventional meter. Eventually, improvements to the infrastructure for the project will allow more sophisticated ‘next generation’ meters, SMETS 2, to be used.

But the network, run by the Data Communications Company, a subsidiary of Capita, has not yet been upgraded.

GCHQ, the Government’s intelligence organisation, has been drafted in to improve security to the network, which it warned was vulnerable to being hacked. The Royal Academy of Engineering revealed in a report that ‘disruption on a massive scale is possible’ if hackers managed to switch off householders’ electricity remotely.

In a speech yesterday, Mr De Rivaz said: ‘Delays to the communications infrastructure now means millions more customers will get less digitally sophisticated meters than intended. It is our responsibility to maintain public confidence in the programme and keep costs under control.’

He added all involved in the project should now ‘ take stock… we need to be honest with ourselves on all the issues – security, safety, quality, costs and timeline’.

The cost of installing the smart meters is an average of £400 a property, which is added to energy bills over time.

Smart meters, using radio antennae, give live information on how much energy is being used to the homeowner and supplier.