The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Solar panels ‘incompatible’ with energy smart meters
Consumers have noticed conflicts between the two green energy tools, trebling their bills in one case. Sam Meadows investigates
Solar panel owners are discovering that their energy bills rise when they have a smart meter installed. Almost a million homes are equipped with solar panels, which give owners free energy when it is sunny and payments for any excess energy sold back to the grid.
Meanwhile the number of smart meters now exceeds 12 million – and that number is steadily rising as the Government continues to put pressure on suppliers to install them in every home by the end of 2020.
But conflicts between the two clean energy projects have emerged. This newspaper disclosed last week that solar panel owners were likely to be worse off if they had a smart meter installed. Numerous readers have complained about a host of problems arising from their decision to get a smart meter – and there is little consensus across the industry as to what is causing them.
The problems are so widely known that two of the six biggest suppliers, E.On and Npower, do not install smart meters in homes with solar panels at all.
‘I got a smart meter and my bill trebled’
Frank Knight and his wife, Jennie, accepted a smart meter installation from their supplier, British Gas, in November last year. They’d had solar panels on the roof of their home in Sheffield for a number of years and paid very little for their electricity – roughly £17 a month – as a result.
However, after they had the smart meter installed, their bills increased to around £44. They complained and the smart meter was removed, at which point they said the bills had returned to normal. They have since switched to another provider.
British Gas said the original meter had been malfunctioning and “significantly undercharging” for the couple’s usage.
A spokesman said: “The smart meter, when fitted, worked correctly, giving the impression that they were being overcharged. We believe they were being accurately charged.”
She added that the solar panels, and the energy generated by them, were completely separate from British Gas.
The problems are not always confined to billing issues. One of the benefits claimed for smart rt meters is the ability to see your usage in pounds and pence. But t one British Gas customer said d he had found it harder to track ack his energy use once his smart mart meter was installed.
Duncan Jamieson, 66, from Lincolnshire, said he used to be able to tell when his house was using power generated by his solar panels as the old-style meter would stop op ticking upwards. His new w smart meter shows only his usage, meaning that he now has no way to track his panels’ anels’ power generation and ensure that he is getting the benefits. He asked British Gas to remove his smart meter but the company refused. British Gas told Telegraph Money that his previous meter had been causing problems with his solar panels. It agreed not to bill him for eight months to resolve the dispute and said he was now being billed accurately as his smart mete meter tracked his usage. The compa company said legacy meters running bac backwards were a common problem fo for solar panel owners. This forces suppliers to bill on the basis of est estimates, which could lead to u undercharging.
What Wh is the problem?
Many Ma readers suspect their t charging smart them meter for is energy generated by their panels. Mr Knight commissioned c an independent engineer to look into his case. In his report the engineer said the solar panels were working correctly, but there appeared to be compatibility problems between the meter and the panels. He suggested the meter could be recording generation as usage, but this was not a firm diagnosis. British Gas was adamant that the smart meter was not causing the problem.
One big supplier said the problem could be one of regulation. Usually solar panel owners are paid a “deemed” amount for exporting energy to the grid, calculated as 50pc of the energy generated by the panels.
Once a customer has a smart meter installed, licensing conditions require the supplier to pay an accurate amount for the solar energy, which could mean the household gets paid less for generation if the deemed amount was generous. But this does not explain increasing bills.
One possible explanation is that, as British Gas claimed in both the cases above, the legacy meters are underreporting usage. Léonie Greene of the Solar Trade Association, which represents the industry, said another possibility was the cost of “verifying” smart meters to connect to the panels. This could be passed on in bills.
“Our members have been quoted ridiculous fees for administration of smart meters, as these costs should be very small,” she said. “Smart meters and solar panels are both great technologies and natural partners, but this is being rushed through.
“If you put in a first-generation smart meter it can record your power exports but it can’t send the data to the network. Our understanding is that this will be fixed with an upgrade. We advise people with solar panels to wait until that happens.”
Robert Cheesewright of Smart Energy GB, which promotes smart meters, said: “Smart meters have been specifically designed to work with solar panels. Your in-home display will show how much energy you are buying from your supplier and may also be able to reflect the energy you’re generating yourself.”