Energy sector has created its own smart meter rollout woes

The energy sector has created its own “productivity challenge” in relation to the smart meter rollout, an industry expert has suggested.

Electralink chief executive Dan Hopkinson has proposed energy retailers work together to install smart meters in the remaining c.40% of properties yet to have one, with concerns these will be very difficult to reach.

He was speaking to Utility Week following the news that six suppliers have agreed to pay out almost £11 million after failing to hit their smart meter installation targets last year.

Hopkinson, who has previously worked on the smart meter rollout at Siemens and G4S, said: “We can see from our data where the smart meters are installed on any given street and it is an absolute mix now of smart and non-smart on almost every street in the country. So we have almost created our own productivity challenge because we have removed density from the installation programme.

“Is there a conversation to be had to say how do we start to co-ordinate the rollout? Could different retailers come together to look at the productivity challenge? In other words so we’re not sending five different installation teams onto a street at different times, especially in areas of low smart penetration, possibly there are geographies where it would make more sense to try and send a team into the area to do as many installs as possible. That would be a very different way of doing the programme than today.”

Last week Ofgem said there was a total shortfall of more than one million smart installations after British Gas, Ovo, Bulb, Eon, Scottish Power and SSE fell short of their targets for 2022.

As a result, they have agreed to pay a total of £10.8 million into Ofgem’s Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Fund (EIVRF), with British Gas paying the most at more than £3.3 million.

According to the latest government figures, more than 33 million smart and advanced meters have been installed in homes and small businesses across Great Britain, which represents 58% of all meters in the UK.

Hopkinson warned that Electralink’s analysis shows that the annual install rate is “pretty flat”. He further added that “at current levels of productivity, it will be 2029 before the rollout is completed”.

Earlier this year, Utility Week’s analysis of government figures revealed that the rate of smart meter installations must more than double to have any chance of completing the rollout by the 2025 deadline.