Scottishpower smart meter rollout spend to top £340m

● Up to 2,000 to be installed every day ● All customers to have one by 2020 ● Parent firm’s profits up by 6.4%

Scottishpower is to invest £341 million on rolling out smart energy meters to more than five million homes across the UK.

The Glasgow-based company, owned by Spanish utility Iberdrola, has already installed 100,000 of the devices in customer homes and now expects to be putting up to 2,000 meters in place each day across Scotland, England and Wales by 2020.

Contractors Actavo, Amey, Lowribeck and Providor have won contracts to work on the roll-out over the next four years as the firm replaces traditional energy meters.

Chief corporate officer Keith Anderson said: “Scottishpower is well on course to invest over £1.8 billion this year, and digital innovation is a key part of our long-term business objectives. Smart metering will revolutionise the way our customers consume and monitor their own energy use, empowering them to make real behaviour changes and identify savings.”

He added: “This contract award is a significant moment for Scottishpower in the delivery of smart meters for millions of people across the UK. There is a significant challenge to support climate change targets and we are determined to offer all our customers a smart meter by the end of 2020, meeting the UK government’s deadline.”

Anderson added it was crucial that the investment the company is making is supported by the UK governmentappointed Data Communications Company, which has been tasked with delivering the necessary infrastructure for the new meters on time and to scope, enabling them to operate effectively across the energy market.

The smart meter contracts were announced as Iberdrola said its net profits rose 6.4 per cent to €2bn (£1.8bn) for the first nine months of the year, as lower operating and financial costs offset a 9.1 per cent slide in revenues to €21.5bn.

At its UK generation and supply arm, underlying pretax profits rose 2.6 per cent to £187.1m, helped by lower operating expenses linked to the closure earlier this year of the Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife.

Earnings at its retail business fell £17m, with the decline blamedonmilderweatherand higher non-energy costs. Scottishpower Renewables saw its underlying earnings slide 28.6 per cent to £156.9m after a sharp reduction in output during the first half. The division is currently investing more than £650m on the construction of eight onshore wind projects on six sites across Scotland.