Can you trust your smart meter?
A drive to get us all using smart energy meters by 2020 has hit a snag, says Sam Brodbeck. It seems they’re, well, a bit dim
Hundreds of thousands of households seeking to switch energy suppliers in the face of rising prices are discovering that their “smart meters” – which in many cases have only just been installed – will cease to work.
Technical flaws in the meters mean the “smart” function of transmitting accurate usage information is lost when households switch provider.
The issue has been known about for several years, but delays in the manufacture of the next generation of “universally compatible” meters means more of the old models have been installed than was expected.
That, coupled with a surge in energy prices that has prompted more customers to switch, means meters could be stripped of their “smart” capabilities in hundreds of thousands of homes. And householders are reporting other problems with their meters, too.
The Government wants to have every household using smart meters by 2020 because, in theory, automatic, accurate readings will save money for both customers and energy firms, who will no longer have to pay staff to check millions of meters. However, three years ahead of the deadline, only 4.9 million smart meters have been installed.
And there are growing suspicions that the devices are not as smart as their high-profile advertising claims.
The difficulty in switching is one issue. Readers in areas with poor mobile phone coverage report that the devices only work intermittently.
And the news from abroad is also worrying. A Dutch study of smart meters found five different models produced erroneous readings, sometimes up to six times higher than actual energy consumption. Distortions were most extreme when “green”, energy-saving equipment – such as LED light bulbs, heaters and dimmers – were used, the University of Twente research found.
And in Canada last year, energy firm Hydro One was forced to restart manual meter readings on 36,000 households in rural Ontario after widespread complaints.
Concerns over the smart meters in Britain come at a bad time. Most of the big suppliers have announced price rises starting this month or in April. Last week, SSE was the latest supplier to say electricity bills will rise from the end of April, in its case by an average of 14.9 per cent. Prior to that, First Utility announced a 9.7 per cent increase. As with SSE, it blamed rising wholesale prices – but it also said the cost of meeting obligations “such as the smart meter programme” has grown by 22 per cent.
So, will smart meters save households any money?
According to the Government’s own figures, savings will be small in the early years. By 2020 it expects the average savings for a household with both electricity and gas being monitored by smart meters to be just £11. This rises to £47 by 2030, when total savings, after build costs, are expected to be £6 billion. This is against costs of £11 billion, according to the National Audit Office – a figure which could ultimately be higher due to repeated delays.
Households are not obliged to apply for smart meters, but millions have taken up offers of “free” installation when prompted by providers. Jane Roberts had a smart meter installed in her Sussex home by supplier Ovo in early 2015. The episode was a “complete farce”, she said.
After querying figures from an annual statement, she was told these were merely estimates. “I thought the whole point of having a smart meter is that they give actual usage,” she said.
“Not unreasonably I had assumed the figures would be accurate. I might as well have taken a random guess at the usage.”
Ovo has since admitted that its literature wrongly refers to “estimated” readings even where they are provided by smart meters.
In common with many, Mrs Roberts also discovered once she had decided in February to switch to Scottish Power for a better deal, that her meter’s smart functionality would cease to work.
That meant that she had to go back to submitting manual meter readings. This is more difficult with formerly smart meters, she found. “You have to press the number six button three times to see the electricity reading, and the number nine button once for gas,” she explained. The problem for switchers stems from the first iteration of meters known as “Smets I” – which began to be installed in late 2012 – where suppliers separately developed their own meters. This means, in some cases, the smart functions are lost on switching between suppliers. A spokesperson for Smart Energy GB, the supplier-funded body responsible for communicating the smart meter rollout, said the introduction of the new Smets II meters, expected later this year, will fix the flaw for those who are yet to convert. An upgrade would be available for Smets I, she said, without these having to be replaced. “Customers have been left in switching limbo – that’s having the greatest impact,” said Peter Earl, head of energy at the price comparison website comparethemarket.com. He said the average saving from switching is around £200 a year, against a supposed average £11 annual saving from using a smart meter.
“The Government expected there would only be a small number of the first-generation before Smets II came in, but the reality is that there are now at least five million and perhaps as many as 10 million Smets I meters.”
Other customers have found that because meters use mobile phone networks, they cease to work where network coverage is weak or erratic.
Suzanne Harvey (inset below) had a smart meter installed by First Utility in 2014 but became concerned when she did not receive a bill for more than a year.
After the supplier failed to respond to repeated complaints she switched to Sainsbury’s Energy, which is supplied by British Gas.
“When the engineer came and installed it, he told us the signal was weak where we lived and that it was probably going to be a waste of time anyway – and that proved to be true,” she said. “It’s never worked and now I’ve moved suppliers I’ve had to go back to manual readings.”
Mrs Harvey’s Buckinghamshire home, near Tring, is rural but by no means remote.
Smart Energy GB said a solution is imminent as suppliers will be able to use the “new national infrastructure network”, which went live in November. The network, which was meant to be ready by 2015, is run by the Data Communications Company (DCC), owned by Capita, and its delay is the main stumbling block to suppliers meeting the 2020 deadline.
When fully operational, the DCC network will cover 99.25 per cent of homes, Smart Energy said.
Mr Earl said: “When the teething problems are ironed out, having a smart meter will be the right thing to do on the basis that one of the main barriers to switching is the confusion around how bills work. With smart meters that should all fall away and suppliers – and comparison sites – can access that information directly.”
But for the first generation of smart meter users, he said, there is no end in sight to the glitches. “We are told the problems will be fixed later this year, but with the delays so far it’s hard to be confident.”
‘I assumed the meter would be accurate, I might as well have taken a random guess’