Government to scrap £6m DCC smart meter interface

The government has launched a consultation on its plans to scrap a £6 million network that would allow suppliers yet to go smart to update the smart meter records of customers switching to them.

The Non-Gateway Interface (NGI) was intended to allow non-DCC user suppliers to update the Smart Metering key Infrastructure (SMKI) certificates of SMETS2 meters, preventing the outgoing supplier from receiving and sending critical service requests to meters they are no longer responsible for.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has decided that the NGI no longer “offer[s] sufficient value for money to be an appropriate solution, and has directed the DCC to suspend further development effort on the NGI solution.”

The NGI would cost more than £6 million over its operational lifetime, while the period in which it would be used has been reduced by recent requirements for suppliers to become DCC users. It is also unlikely to be ready for a DCC live date of April 2016.

Decc has directed suppliers intending to use the interface to cease development work while the consultation is in process.

An NGI had been planned following a consultation in June 2014, but the recent introduction of the requirement of large suppliers to be DCC users prior to February 2017 and small suppliers by August 2017, means the time period over which such instances will happen has been significantly reduced.

Instead of the NGI the government is proposing that the outgoing user supplier’s SMKI credentials will remain on the SMETS2 metering system until the new non-user supplier has become a user.

The outgoing user supplier would be prohibited from sending service requests to meters unless it is the eligible user, but will have to manage alerts from switched meters in line with its data protection obligations.

The consultation will close on October 5.