UK must get smart
Anger is increasing over the Government’s U turn on smart meters.
The Energy Billing and Metering Consultation seemed to have come up with a masterstroke by proposing that all companies using more than 73,200 kWh per annum would be provided with a smart meter to help them measure and monitor their energy consumption.
However last month, the Government announced that it was raising the threshold to 732,000 kWh reducing the number of potential businesses covered by a factor of ten from 400,000 to less than 40,000. (See news item dated 13 May)
So-called ‘smart grid’ infrastructure is already widely used by utilities in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, and the US. In these countries, consumers are able to see clearly what they are consuming and how much it is costing them – providing the ultimate incentive to reduce their demand.
“Over half of our future carbon saving will have to come from energy efficiency and demand reduction,” said Sarah Darby of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute. “However, we are moving in the opposite direction with electricity consumption going up at about 1 per cent per annum due to the increase in the amount of gadgets in households.
“We need to make energy visible and give consumers a ‘reality check’ so they can see what’s happening,” she added.
Smart meters were introduced in Northern Ireland for pre-payment customers, who were subsequently shown to have cut their consumption by 11 per cent.
"This could be an immensely important piece of technology," said Ms Darby, speaking at a recent ESRC debate at Imperial College, London. "It will make it possible for consumers to sell electricity back to the grid via microgeneration and could unlock the future potential of renewables."
Article 13 of the EU’s Energy Services Directive actually explicitly tasks member states with ensuring that energy billing is “clear and based on actual consumption” as well as being frequent enough “to enable customers to regulate their own energy consumption”.
“The UK government has made solid progress to examine the benefits and cost of rolling out a fully networked metering environment in the UK, but that appears to have now stalled,” said Jeff Lund, vice-president of business development at smart meter provider Echelon. “The electricity generation industry needs clear leadership and a timeline for the UK to advance forward with a full two-way networked metering environment.”
Smart network meters measure and display how much energy is being used at any particular time and help consumers identify ways to reduce energy usage by switching unused appliances off or by using more energy efficiency products. It also enables electricity suppliers to apply different tariffs at certain times during the day to help manage demand from users, similar to the model used by telephone operators.
“By incorporating information from a smart meter, smart appliances can react automatically to changing energy-rate information,” explained Mr Lund. “Instead of running a dishwasher or washing machine at midday when electricity rates are higher, a service application will either automatically delay the machine until a lower rate period, or let the consumer choose when to operate it.”