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Smart Metering

Background

The Government is committed to seeking measures to achieve carbon savings of 0.2 MtC by 2010 through better metering and billing. It believes that a key contribution to this target could be made by the introduction of smart meters.

Smart meters allow energy suppliers to communicate directly with their customers, removing the need for meter readings and ensuring entirely accurate bills with no estimates. They tell people about their energy use through either linked display units or other ways, such as through the internet or television. They could offer gas and electricity customers:

• more accurate - and fewer - estimated bills;
• information that could help them use less energy and encourage energy efficiency;
• lower costs through reduced peak consumption, because this would reduce the need for new network investment;
• increased security of supply. because the less energy we use, the less we need;
• more sustainable consumption through reduced carbon emissions.

Smart Trials (the “Energy Demand Research Project”)

BERR is co-funding with supplier-led consortia a series of two-year trials which will test consumers’ responses to different interventions, including combinations of some or all of the following:

• smart meters;
• clip-on real time display units (these work off existing energy meters to give the consumer instant readings of energy and other information, such as the cost of energy, by way of a display device in the home);
• improved billing (with and without smart meters);
• energy efficiency information;
• community engagement.

The trials, which began in July 2007, and which are being managed by Ofgem, will involve around 40,000 households across Great Britain.

Consultation on Energy Billing and Metering

In August 2007, BERR published its second consultation on energy billing and metering seeking views on a range of measures which were set out in the 2007 Energy White Paper. The measures, which aim to heighten awareness of energy use and reduce consumption, are to require:

• the provision of comparative historical consumption data on bills for all domestic gas and electricity customers;
• electricity suppliers to provide (where technically possible) a real-time display unit when a meter is replaced or newly installed in domestic premises;
• electricity suppliers to provide a real-time display to all consumers who request one until 2010; and
• gas and electricity suppliers to install smart meters in those parts of the SME sector, above a certain usage threshold, where it is cost-effective to do so.

Views were invited on the Government’s expectation that, over the next ten years, all gas and electricity customers will be given smart meters with visual displays.

Government Response to the Consultation

The document is available on this page under Latest News.

The Government’s key conclusions are:

• that further work is needed before a decision can be taken on a smart meter roll-out to domestic and small business customers (the draft Impact Assessment has been published to help take this forward);
• to proceed with smart metering for medium-to-large businesses;
• to require the provision of historical consumption information on domestic customers’ bills from 1st January 2002; and
• to agree a voluntary approach with industry to the provision of real-time display devices