Rules Britannia

Don't be disheartened by the slower-than-expected start - Britain's smart meter programme is still likely to end up as a blueprint for other countries, says Richard St Clair

The start of the smart meter programme in Great Britain, being led by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), has just been delayed by around a year. Following the successful notification of Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specifications (Smets) 1 by the European Union, the foundation stage was able to start proper in autumn last year. However, the government’s plan for a two-year foundation and eight-year rollout has been compressed. Much of 2012 was lost to developmental and start-up issues, and there are still several major tasks to be completed.

Smets covers gas and electricity meters, the in-home display, as well as a communications hub with standards to ensure that equipment will communicate data in a consistent and secure format over home area and wide area networks. To ensure suppliers had the confidence to get going, the government split the Smets into two stages. Smets 1, published in April 2012, was designed to deliver functional interoperability in smart metering equipment for the foundation stage.

The communications hub will act as the bridge between devices in the premises and the wide area network and allow devices to be added or replaced over time. This ensures interoperability between home area network devices, and that consumers will be able to switch suppliers easily. As well as defining requirements for the communications hub, Smets 2, which is expected to be published later this year, and its companion specification, will set out further detail in defined areas such as standards for the home network.

Smets 2 will be governed much more rigorously by the security requirements mandated by the government as part of the communication service provision (CSP) and data service provision (DSP) contracts. During this process, CSP/DSP bidders have been asked to include provision of the communications hub as part of their infrastructure, instead of energy suppliers. The thinking behind this is that CSPs/DSPs will then own the communications responsibility from the head end to the metering set in the home, assuring the level of security and privacy vital to gaining consumer acceptance.

Crucially, Britain has made security of the smart metering system a priority by adopting a “secure by design” approach. This means security concerns are considered and addressed at every stage of the development lifecycle, to give consumers confidence. Moreover, consumers will have a choice over who has access to their smart meter data, except where the data is needed to fulfil regulated duties. Without the customer’s explicit consent, suppliers cannot use that data for marketing, or to develop more sophisticated services.

Britain’s much stronger emphasis on communicating the consumer benefits of smart metering, and its potential for energy efficiency savings, makes it stand out from the approaches being taken in many other nations across Europe. Elsewhere, the primary benefits are viewed as being improving the management of supply, and reducing losses and administrative costs.

The reason for this contrast is that Britain’s fully liberalised market has resulted in a dual fuel environment, which demands a far more comprehensive smart metering programme. Few if any other markets have dual fuel requirements, or place the consumer and carbon reduction at their core (see box).

As markets across Europe begin to liberalise, it is logical that the smart metering programme in Britain will provide a blueprint in respect of creating an “information market for consumers”. Certainly, there havebeen key lessons learnt thus far.

One of the biggest developmental issues has been the wireless specification for enabling the gas meter and in-home display to interface with the data communications infrastructure. With so many different parties involved, the process was delayed by a vacuum of governance. This was resolved with the industry’s voluntary establishment of the smart specification working group, which has created a level playing field and quickly consolidated industry thinking with regards to standardisation for the home area and wide area interfaces. Indeed, Britain’s greatest achievement with smart metering centres on interoperability and the potential for scalability moving forward.

Despite the impression given by its recent deferral of the start of the programme, Decc has been proactive in driving the smart meter programme, amid criticism. A key success factor has been the decoupling of Smets 1 and Smets 2 to expedite (and indeed enable) a foundation stage. In many other countries, smart metering projects have ended up taking too long to get going because they have attempted to get everything exactly right before they start.

The biggest challenges in Britain have been finding a security design that is proportional to the risk involved. A pragmatic balance must be struck between satisfying the security needs of a critical national infrastructure and the reality of only small amounts of meter reading data are being transmitted. Security therefore continues to present a major challenge in respect of keeping the programme on course, but at a cost point and with security measures proportional to the risk.

Consumer engagement remains perhaps the other big challenge. Up until very recently, this had not been budgeted for, but should now be addressed with the establishment of the central delivery body. A wide-reaching advertising campaign should be forthcoming, similar to the one managed by Digital UK for the switchover to digital television.

Early engagement with all stakeholders is also essential. As the smart metering experience in Britain clearly demonstrates, the sooner all relevant parties are engaged, the better the overall system design will be, ensuring a cost effective, efficient and future-proof delivery, to the benefit of the market, the environment, and consumers.

Richard St Clair is managing director of Elster

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 17th May 2013.

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