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E+T Magazine

According to the latest figures, 57 per cent of all meters in Great Britain are now smart, although around 9 per cent – approximately three million – were not working as intended as of March this year, the NAO said.

In February, the government launched a consultation on plans to have smart meters installed in 80 per cent of homes and 73 per cent of small businesses by the end of 2025 to help achieve net-zero targets and save money.

The NAO said the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) had made recent progress with the rollout, but faced challenges in meeting its latest targets.

The government had worked with industry to develop new smart meter technology that worked in more homes, but there remained a shortage of installation engineers and disagreements with suppliers, who argued they had exhausted the “low hanging fruit” of customers who wanted the devices.

Suppliers were therefore calling for new policies to support the rollout, such...

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  • The Gov't advisory on this approach being Green needs a re-think. Fundamentally people want lower bills so are always inclined to attempt to manage their usage by some means. Not having adopted a standard for the meters before project begin was and still is hugely wasteful of energy in people in vans and staff employed in energy companies dealing with the fall out. Then the manufacture of these meters is ignored in terms of carbon footprint. Last but not least the 'bicycle shed' phenomenon of debate on this taking away from real sources of climate change that need decisions asap...  Why aren't we seeing there is no need to replace meters when we have a perfectly good metering and billing solution - let the industry and the consumers drive change not Gov't in this instance? The big debate needs to be around forcing all manufactured goods to be recyclable and to have factored this cost into the price. The full life cycle debate is more urgent.

  • in reply to Roger Greenwood

    Forgot you can't hit enter on replies ;-)  Downsides:- 1. Need a day off to get it changed. 2. Risk of a network hack/network problem disconecting me (and even all the street!). 3. Meter fails, disconnecting me (they all have a relay in I believe). What would persuade me and maybe others is if there are some tangible benefits e.g. being able to switch things on/off automatically at low/high billing periods. Timers exist but they are not dynamic. This is all possible but doesn't seem to be discussed/on the radar at the moment. Third party solutions exist, but the DNO meters don't seem to play any part in that (domestically).

  • I don't have a smart meter, I already have another method of seeing usage (on an app) so see no benefit. There are some downsides/risks though:-

  • I don't think that they are very accurate.  I find that whenever my tariff changes, the smart meter doesn't change in line with this and I have to do a manual reset.  The supplier doesn't tell you this but expects the customer to do this and do it themselves.  I have had under bill readings and over bill readings.  Once the amount used in money went down overnight from the previous day!

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