Smart meter glitch hands customer £44k bill for a day
A POWER giant has apologised after faulty smart meters charged families up to £44,000 for a single day’s supply.
The meters, which monitor daily use and feed the results back to gas and electricity firms, began to go haywire on Friday.
SSE, one of the Big Six power companies, was flooded with complaints about impossibly high readings, and has still not solved the problem.
Worried sales executive Rob Markham posted a picture on social media of the meter readout recording his use that day as £44,249.52.
‘I am still worried as my smart meter seems to have a bigger problem than anyone else,’ he said.
The average annual bill for a medium-sized house is £830, so Mr Markham’s daily total would keep such a home running for 53 years.
Another customer, Mark Umpleby, was told he had used £33,183 worth of gas in one day and was quoted £27,022 for the next. The meter helpfully told him he had exceeded his budget by 2.76 million per cent.
He said in a tweet to SSE: ‘Prices certainly gone up if my smart meter is accurate on my gas use over last few days! Like it warm but...’ Usman Hussain also tweeted a picture of his meter, saying he would be charged nearly £9,600 for his day’s electricity and gas.
Yesterday SSE blamed the unsolved glitch on a ‘routine software upgrade’. A spokesman said an investigation had been launched and customers would not be charged for errant readings on ‘a small number’ of meters.
‘Customers should rest assured that their billing is unaffected. The technical issue only affects the digital display in their home, as opposed to the actual smart meter. We will be contacting any affected customers directly with more information and hope to get their in-home displays back to normal as soon as possible.’ Five million British homes are already fitted with smart meters and under an £11billion Government drive the number is scheduled to reach more than 50million by 2020.
The gadgets herald the end of estimated bills, providing readings over the telephone or internet and letting meter readers into the home.
But privacy campaigners fear they give gas and electricity firms detailed data about customers’ lives which they could use to swell their profits.
Smart meters can pass on readings as frequently as every half hour, revealing which rooms and gadgets clients use the most, as well as when they are in or out.
Opponents are concerned that this sensitive data could be sold to healthcare companies which would then target customers with specific goods and services.
Before examining the data in-depth or selling it on to third parties, firms must ask customers’ permission. But experts warn that many people who accept a smart meter may not know exactly what they are signing up to.
Last year the Government’s Science and Technology Committee concluded that smart meters would cut bills by only small amounts, but said there could be major benefits, such as reduced pollution.