Smart Meters – and consulting with experts, not vested interests

I first learned about “smart” metering when I heard Joanne Carr talk about them at National Energy Action, the fuel poverty charity. “Smart” meters replace the somewhat uninformative boxes which show our electricity and gas consumption in units and kilowatt hours. Most people only look at their meters when they want to get a reading for a gas or electricity bill, or when they want to dispute an estimated reading.  

I have already provided an explanation of how to read your meter and how to query your energy bill. Many people think that if we knew better what each appliance, light, or heat creating device actually costs us we would be more careful in using energy. 

I am sure that it true; knowledge is strength. It is one thing to leave the television on standby overnight, but if you know what it costs you over a year, you would probably make the effort when you haul yourself off to bed to turn the device off. Smart meters can show you this information.

Supporters of smart metering say that if smart meters were fitted then people would save 10% of their energy costs. The energy suppliers say that the figure would be much lower – less than 3% and that the costs would outweigh the benefits.

They do generally however say that they are now in favour of smart metering, although I am uncertain just how smart they want these meters to be. When I talked informally about smart meters to energy companies a year or so ago they complained about the likely cost of them. 

So forgive me if I dismiss the views of the energy companies out of hand. They make money selling gas and electricity and the last thing that they want to do is to encourage people to use less of the stuff. I find it astonishing that the government trusts them with saving energy so much, because it is directly against their commercial interests – a bit like putting the airlines in charge of discouraging people to fly. 

Centrica recently reported huge profits; they did not make the money by discouraging people to use their products. Apart from environmental benefits by encouraging people to waste less energy there is another important principle involved in smart metering. If you buy something you should know what you are paying for. If I go to a shop to buy my food I get an itemised receipt, not a single lump sum receipt.  

For me, and I suspect for many others, an electricity bill which could show me how much I spent on the upstairs lights, how much the TV and fridge cost to run, and what that electric kettle was really costing me, would certainly get me into the habit of turning the light off, switching off the appliance and filling the kettle with only the water I needed to boil. 

I would welcome the fact that the meter could be read remotely, without anyone having to enter my home, and that I could see consumption on line, figuring out how to budget better.  

I heard recently from John Brooks, a heating engineer trading under the name of Croydon Calorific recently. John decided to respond to a consultation on smart metering.  Well, John Brooks spend a lot of his time thinking about smart metering and decided to use his undoubted skills in practical heating controls in helping the government’s consultation. He wrote a careful paper about smart metering which you can find here: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file43708.pdf 

It is full of practical ideas and he links metering to weather compensation and short term weather forecasting. I hope that John’s ideas are properly explored and that we do not end up with smart meters being a lowest common denominator of controls, rather than the most sophisticated system controls that we can create. 

If John’s ideas simply lie fallow, then what is the point of government consultations? From time to time many people spend a great deal of time putting together to a response to a consultation document, seeking the views of colleagues and partners in the energy industry, only to find that notwithstanding the consultation the government ploughs on its pre determined course relying on its own opinions and those of the usual suspects. 

There are many willing environmentalists prepared to provide their expert well thought advice free, for the greater good. It is a shame that the government fails to use this resource to its fullest. I think that they have to learn that trusting indigenous small companies and small business is usually a better bet than trusting the multinationals.