Era urges government not to waste time and money on quick fix energy devices

Wednesday 1st August – Britain’s major energy suppliers are today calling on the Government to remain focused on the delivery of smart meters to every household in the UK. Consultation on this key aspect of May’s Energy White Paper is due to commence in the next few days and the Energy Retail Association (ERA) hopes that the government will provide a mandate for the industry to roll out smart meters and send a clear message to consumers that they are the only way for the UK to move into a new era of energy consumption.

We believe that smart meters are essential if consumers are to be offered greater control of their energy consumption. This is because only smart meters are able to deliver:

• Accurate electricity and gas bills for every customer (i.e. the end of estimated bills)
• Real-time information on energy being consumed
• Huge potential for further variety and sophistication of electricity and gas tariffs
• Savings on back-office costs by the suppliers around estimated bills

The industry is confident that it can deliver this new technology – which would involve the biggest home visit programme ever seen (as 45 million meters are replaced) – within 10 years. This would be for both electricity and gas, the latter of which is crucial as this is the major contributor to domestic carbon emissions.

However, the switchover cannot be achieved if the Government insists that the energy suppliers provide every single customer on demand with a free clip-on electricity display device (EDD) from next year.  These devices currently retail at £60 each so the costs associated with this decision will make smart metering impossible to implement as well as risking pushing up electricity bills. The industry is also concerned about the potential risk associated with millions of customers self-installing these devices to their live electrical cables and will not accept liability for accidents that may occur.

The ERA fully supports the Government’s objective of putting customers in the driving seat but it believes that this can only happen if the latter makes an unambiguous commitment to smart meters.