Remote Energy Monitoring responds to DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) announcement of smart meter roll-out recommendations

After lengthy consultation and analysis the UK government's Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced its plans to ensure that all UK homes have smart meters installed by 2020.

As an OFGEM approved smart metering solutions provider REM is very strongly positioned to work with the major utility companies to fulfil this mandate.

Smart metering has numerous and significant benefits for the consumer, the energy provider and the environment and their roll-out will play an essential role in allowing the UK to achieve its carbon emission reduction targets by enabling the consumer and the utility to work intelligently together to reduce energy consumption. So there is:

Positive impact for consumers

Smart meters are a significant step in improving UK domestic energy efficiency, reducing energy costs and enabling utilities to offer their customers previously unattainable levels of service and support. Customers will no longer receive inaccurate bills, and will also be able to understand their energy consumption patterns enabling them to make informed decisions and reduce their energy bills.

Improved social impact

The data that smart metering provides will enable utilities to fulfil their desire and responsibility to support the energy vulnerable and reduce energy debt. Smart metering will enable utilities to work more closely with those at risk, providing support and advice on how to reduce their consumption patterns by adjusting their behaviour to ensure that they don't fall into unexpected energy debt.

Economic impact for energy retailers

True smart metering solutions will enable utility providers and consumers to monitor energy consumption frequently and accurately. This "intelligence" will enable utilities to fulfil their obligation to work with customers to reduce their energy costs and consumption. Smart metering will also produce significant cost savings as pedestrian meter reads will no longer be required and call centre operators will have immediate access to up to date information.

Additionally by understanding energy consumption patterns to a higher level than previously ever achieved, better energy purchasing decisions will also be made.

Comment:

Press comment has been varied in terms as to the success of the trials which have already taken place to date as to the efficacy of smart meters to reduce of energy consumption. It is key to understand that smart metering solutions on their own will not reduce energy consumption but the immediacy and accuracy of the information they provide to the utility and the consumer allied to education and support can effect significant changes in consumer behaviour.

Essentially this new level of accurate and almost real time information will dramatically improve the levels of customer service the utilities will offer to the consumer including advice and so ultimately energy bill reduction will be considered as a core part of this service mix.

The consultation paper issued by DECC puts forward a number of valid and noteworthy recommendations and below are some key observations.
One of the core recommendations is the adoption of a central communications model which should ensure standardisation of metering data for use by any 3rd party. However, the key to improved customer service and reduced cost to serve will be the ability to communicate to the smart meter in real-time in order to conduct transactions such as "over the air" prepayment top up and property de-energisation /re-energisation for house moves. To facilitate this, the smart meter must have on demand communications and not be limited to a communications hub designed only for volume data manipulation and analysis.

Remote Enrgy Monitoring's smart metering solution is communications agnostic and agile and allows the utilities to take advantage of any communications solution. Any solution must support on-demand functionality and be capable of near real time communications i.e. less than 5 second round trip. The solution will require the utilities to make long term and volume commitments which GRPS does not, plus GPRS has the ability to be price competitive.

The mandate also considers the most effective roll out options for smart metering. Remote Energy Monitoring consider that although a marginal roll-out could accrue benefits from co-ordination at a local level due to the concentration of effort, greater benefits would accrue to both the utility and the consumer if co-ordination was based on customer segments, supported by new propositions to encourage energy conservation and carbon reduction and allowing the most vulnerable to benefit first.

The proposal also examines how smart metering can be utilised to protect the energy vulnerable. The potential benefits to this group are enormous as many of them are currently supplied by prepayment meters. Smart meters will enable utilities to work more closely and sympathetically with these consumers to ensure they are not deprived of heat and power whilst also allowing them to provide fairer tariffs and better customer service.

The mandate also suggests that smart metering will be a major stepping stone towards the implementation of "smart grids". This is very true but high speed meter and data management systems are prerequisites. In addition, there will be the need to agree industry standards for in home communication to devices such as TVs and fridge/freezers. Until the industry can decide on Zigbee versus Z-Wave, many of the benefits of smart metering will not be realised.

The government proposal encompasses both gas and electricity meters but it is key to ensure the least cost in this programme that the data and communications functionality are associated with the electricity meter and not duplicated in the gas meter.

A key measurement of the success of smart metering will be the influence it has on consumer behaviour to reduce energy consumption. This can only be possible if the consumer has access to the meter readings directly and frequently and can draw meaningful conclusions from the information they see. To enable this, the government has recommended that all consumers should be supplied with a secondary screen through which they can access their meter and their energy consumption patterns. For some groups this may be appropriate but this information could also be accessed via the internet, interactive tv platforms and text to speech services which could provide significant savings in hardware and provide more informative dynamic information related specifically to a consumer's consumption patterns. This type of integration with existing technologies is certainly the least expensive and can be easily adapted to support vulnerable and disabled consumers. For example REM can generate an automated daily balance and use text to speech to translate this to a voice message which can be delivered via their telephone.

As well as deciding how information is going to be delivered to the consumer it also has to be decided what information should be delivered to provide the best possible platform for the customer to make informed decisions about their consumption and change their behaviour patterns.

REM provides consumers with the essential 3Cs - Consumption, Carbon and Cost. The presentation of historic and comparative data is vital along with exception reporting and easy access to online advice.

It is essential that consumer support is courted throughout the roll-out programme by the dissemination of accurate information and effective education. The consumer will be very aware that smart metering means that disconnection is now easier and in these times of difficult credit the consumer benefits of smart metering need to be communicated very clearly, hence the immediate rollout of new propositions and enhanced customer care will be vital together with education programmes which clearly demonstrate and provide the means for consumers to change their behaviour and reduce their energy consumption.

In Summary:

Smart metering solutions enable the utilities to deliver energy (and cost) saving propositions and much greater levels of customer care, to do this the meter communications must be near real time and the back end systems capable of managing all data, meters and customer transaction across a mixed meter estate at high speed.