The £11 billion project mired in controversy
SMART meters have been very controversial ever since they were first installed a decade ago in an £11billion project costing each home at least £400 – a cost that is still being added to already escalating energy bills.
Energy companies have welcomed smart meters because it saves them money by doing away with human meter readers. But many people do not want one installed, despite £224million of taxpayers’ money spent on marketing them. Smart meters usually come with a hand-sized reader that lets a household see, in near real-time, how much energy is being used. But it is only by changing habits as a result of observing this data that money can be saved – the meter itself will not lower your bills.
The original target of getting all 29million homes fitted with a smart meter by 2020 has been extended to 2025 – and with only about half of all homes using them, further delays are expected.
The first meters – labelled ‘smart metering equipment technical specifications 1’ (SMETS1) – often went ‘dumb’ and worked like a conventional meter if a household switched supplier.
It was not until 2018 that a new generation of smart meter – SMETS2 – was introduced, allowing households to switch supplier without compromising the smart meter. Some energy customers have also been bullied by energy suppliers with threatening letters telling them they face higher bills if they do not switch to a smart meter.
Others, who live in rural locations, high-rise apartments and older houses with thick walls, struggle to get the meters to work – as the communication radio waves cannot get through.
There have also been concerns that smart meters used to monitor gas supply could fail over the next few years – as many are fitted with batteries that run out after about a decade. Unless batteries are replaced by an engineer, the smart meter could stop working, potentially shutting off the supply of gas.