Smart Meters – A Washout?

A recent report has indicated that the rollout of smart meters in the UK has proved to be a big disappointment with limited impact and rising costs.In the UK the energy companies themselves are in charge of installing the so-called smart meters, leading to meters being installed needlessly and at cost to the consumer.

The energy minister who put the scheme in place has even admitted to getting rid of his, because like many other families in the UK, he just didn’t use it.


Compounding issues, is the fact that some struggle to get a decent mobile signal and therefore can only display the energy in the kwh, not a monetary number which would be more useful to most consumers; a so- called dumb-mode 


So what can be done to save the scheme, which is far behind its target of getting smart meters in every home by 2020? Should the scheme be taken out of energy companies hands and handed to distribution network operators as in the rest of Europe? Should the scheme be looking at replacing all the ‘dumb’ meters? Should the scheme even be saved, or are smart meters a waste of time? If you have a smart meter, would you recommend them to others?