SSE: foundation meters are a ‘massive risk’ to the smart rollout

Big six energy supplier SSE has warned that the increasing numbers of foundation meters being installed in consumer’s homes are a “massive risk” to the industry's ability to future proof the smart meter rollout.

SSE’s director of metering and smart transformation Sara-Jane Asquith said that the ongoing delays to the Data and Communication Company (DCC) network means that SMETS one technology in foundation meters could potentially make up a quarter of all smart meters installed in homes nationally.

“SMETS one technology has suddenly gone from being very small and pilot to being huge. We estimate that one in four smart meters nationally could be SMETS one.”

“It limits customers on change of supply and we don’t believe that’s an acceptable experience for customers. So as an industry we have a responsibility to get that right.

SSE has installed 130,000 meters so far, currently at a rate of 700 a day, all of which are SMETS one meters which are still at risk of becoming stranded assets.

SMETS two meters, which will have full interoperability with the DCC network, will not be installed until after the DCC goes live in August next year.

Asquith said that the current inability to keep the smart functionality when customers switch is a major barrier to consumers wishing to adopt smart meters early.

She said the supplier is continually contacting consumers giving them the option to switch to smart, but of the 30 per cent who show initial interest, many drop out when they realise the current technical limitations.

Asquith said: “For every 100 customers we contact anything between zero – and we had zero from 10,000 customers in the North East recently – to 30 per cent contact us.”

“Of those 30 per cent that contact us, a lot of people drop out because we explain that actually if you take a smart meter, while we really support it, if you change supplier and want to maintain smart services, you are going to have to go back to estimation and meter reading.”

DCC managing director Jonathan Simcock said the uptake of SMETS one meters was fundamentally a “good thing” but the company is still examining how SMETS one technology can be adopted cost-effectively once the DCC goes live next year.

He said he was “absolutely sure” that in the “vast majority of case” there would be a cost-effective method of adopting SMETS one meters.

“There are a growing number of these meters in the market place, that’s a good thing. Consumers get used to engaging with smart meters, energy companies get used to engaging with consumers with smart meters, but we need to solve this problem of them potentially becoming stranded assets.”

“It’s important to do it because we need the encouragement to continue to install the foundation meters but we do need to give people confidence that it can be done cost-effectively.”