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The government’s revised smart meter deadline is a “step into reality”, the chief operating officer of one of the UK’s largest installers has said.
Tim Mortlock, from Smart Metering Systems (SMS), said the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s new 2024 target announced yesterday (16 September), will still require a lot of work from the industry but added it was “positive news”.
Speaking to Utility Week, he said: “There is still a very significant job to be done, it’s sort of a step into reality really because it would have required an increase in the industry run rates of something like 10 times if we were going to have to complete it by December 2020.
“Everyone knew that was not realistic, this puts a more realistic regulatory framework around it.
“I think overall it’s positive news and part of that is in a sense that it is just confirming what we already knew in terms of the timescale.
“We were already talking to our staff, our customers, our investors, all our stakeholders about the fact that we will be continuing to install smart meters to the end of 2022 and beyond. So extending the rollout and deadlines to January 2024 just formalises all of that and provides the regulatory framework for that to happen.”
Previously suppliers had until year end 2020 to offer all homes a smart meter, a target revised from installing a device. The government is now proposing to introduce a monitoring framework period from 2021 to 2024. During this time milestones will be introduced, with the achievement of a minimum smart meter coverage of 85 per cent at the end of the framework period.
BEIS says this would be expected to deliver an additional net benefit of around £1.5 billion compared to a “do nothing” policy where the New and Replacement Obligation (NRO) is the sole obligation on energy suppliers relating to the installation of smart meters.
Mortlock was speaking on the back of SMS’ announcement of its half year results to 30 June, in which the company posted a £1.7 million loss before tax.
The results also showed the group’s domestic smart portfolio to be above 1 million, representing a net increase of 156,000 domestic smart meters installed.
Group revenue meanwhile was £54 million, compared to £47 million in H1 2018.
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