The largest UK infrastructure project is underway. Traditional electricity and gas meters in homes and businesses are being replaced with the next generation of digital smart meters. But evidence shows that these new monitoring technologies rarely lead to energy savings, and that they often reinforce established
The largest UK infrastructure project is underway. Traditional electricity and gas meters in homes and businesses are being replaced with the next generation of digital smart meters. But evidence shows that these new monitoring technologies rarely lead to energy savings, and that they often reinforce established wasteful ways of using energy. At the same time, Government support for proven energy efficiency installations for homes and businesses is at an all time low. Important questions need asking about the smart meter roll out, what it can and can’t achieve, and who stands to benefit.
The attraction of smart energy metrics
The European Union aims for intelligent energy metering systems to be delivered to 80% of EU consumers by 2020. In the UK, five million shiny new smart meters have already been installed as part of the government’s smart meter roll out. By end 2020, the goal is for 53 million smart meters to have been installed by energy suppliers, in more than 30 million premises across the country.
When used together with in-home display devices, this way of monitoring energy and gas usage promises to give customers greater control over their utility bills. Smart metering provides accurate and real-time information about energy use to allow users to visualise when, where and how energy is being used and how much this usage costs. The hope is that these metrics will encourage householders and businesses to cut back on their daily energy consumption, saving both energy and money. Ways to do this include; changing household routines (e.g. lowering the thermostat), upgrading energy inefficient appliances, and installing insulation or renewable energy technologies.
At the same time, smart metering offers the holy grail for energy suppliers and network operators by creating ‘an unprecedented new platform for innovation in energy data’ that will allow efficient collection of billing information, easy identification of meter faults, and more sophisticated tariff structures.
The claim is then that smart metering will make Britain’s energy system more secure and resilient, help to meet carbon emission reduction targets, and create a more dynamic and competitive retail energy market.
Myth busting: Monitoring energy use at home
But do these claims stack up? Recent research investigating use of an online energy feedback tool – iMeasure (developed in 2006 by the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute) – raises questions over the merit of smart metering policy aspirations.
Researchers from Anglia Ruskin’s Global Sustainability Institute and the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield sent out questionnaires to almost 3,000 people w