IoD smart meter report ‘factually incorrect’, says EUA

The Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) has called an Institute of Directors (IoD) report on the smart meter rollout “at best ill-conceived and at worst factually incorrect” after the report called for the scheme to be “halted, altered or scrapped.”

The EUA dismissed the report’s headline findings in a letter seen by Utility Week, particularly its calls for the in-home display to be removed, or for the scheme to be abandoned in favour of a smart phone app.

The report said “a key area of concern” is that some parts of the technology behind the scheme will “likely be obsolete by the scheduled switch-on date of 2020”.

EUA chief executive Mike Foster told Utility Week: “We were surprised with the stance that the report took, from our point of view the report failed to see where the future will lie”.

Foster acknowledged that while some suppliers, such as the Co-op in its hearing with the Competition and Markets Authority, think that the development of smart controls have superseded the smart meter rollout and made it redundant, the true value of the programme will be the use of real-time information.

“The next stage is where I think the smart meter programme can deliver benefits because the smart heating control systems won’t necessarily have the real-time information about time of use tariffs, that’s where the maximum benefits can be gained for the household.”

The IoD report highlights the failure of past large-scale “IT fiascos” as further evidence for abandoning the project.

IoD senior infrastructure advisor Dan Lewis said: “This scheme is far from smart. The dishonourable roll call of government IT projects that have haemorrhaged vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to no discernible effect needs no further additions.

“Without a change of direction, [the government] is at risk of overseeing a spectacular failure. They would be well-advised to consider a fresh start.”

But Foster said the entire categorisation of the rollout as an ‘IT project’ was wrong: “This project is not an IT project. It has elements of IT as do most projects due to the environment we all live in.”

However Foster also urges caution at the continuing commitment to a 2020 deadline, citing rising costs and inflated pressures that might come from a shorter installation period.

Foster said: “If the deadline was made 2021 or 2022 I don’t think there would be many people who would lose sleep in the industry, much better to do that than jeopardise the benefits that will come from a smart meter rollout.”

In response to the EUA’s comments the Iod said it “had met with various interested parties following the report but maintain that the report was well researched and stand by its conslusions.”