Why your smart meter may not be so smart

The GB smart meter rollout programme is highly flawed. But this article is not your standard “don’t get a smart meter” polemic, or a list of conspiracy theories. As we have written before, smart meters are critical to building an energy system that is affordable, clean and secure, based on renewable energy and lots of flexibility.

Customer smart meter data is core to our current product offering. By accessing our customers’ half-hourly consumption data, we are able to make an accurate assessment of which smart tariffs would save them the most money. Unfortunately, acquiring complete and reliable smart meter data remains a persistent challenge for our business.

Why are smart meters sometimes “dumb”?

It turns out that around 6.9% of installed smart meters are not able to communicate their meter readings to the central data collection agency, the Data Communications Company (DCC): these are smart meters operating in “traditional” (or dumb) mode. From what we’re seeing, there are also smart meters that are only sporadically communicating with the DCC.

There appear to be three primary causes of these communication issues:

• Old tech: For a substantial portion, the issue is that they are the older SMETS1 model, rather than SMETS2 (click here for a more detailed explanation). They use 3G technology, and are not on the DCC network.

• Outdated firmware: We are told that some energy suppliers fail to keep the firmware on their smart meters up-to-date, leading to issues.

• Poor signal: In some cases the cause may be a weak 4G or radio signal, resulting in sporadic communication. 

How do I check if my smart meter is working?

If you are unsure what kind of meter you have, or whether it should be operating in smart mode, you can use a free tool provided by the Citizens Advice Bureau: if you live in England & Wales click here; for Scotland click here.

You can tell if your smart meter is operating in dumb mode if your electricity bill does not display accurate meter readings. For those that use our smart tariff comparison tool, we will inform you directly if this is the case.

How can I get my smart meter fixed?

For households with a non-functioning smart meter, our advice is to request a replacement from your energy supplier. If they are not forthcoming, then you have two further options: i) switch suppliers to one that is more likely to get this fixed; or ii) lodge a formal complaint with your energy supplier, and then escalate this to the Energy Ombudsman if it is not resolved.

What else needs to change?

There are many things that we believe the government could do to help improve the smart meter rollout. With around 40% of GB households still to receive a smart meter (or an upgrade from their SMETS1 model), changes made now would still have a significant impact.

Here are three practical suggestions:

1. Eliminate the north-south divide when it comes to the communication technology for smart meters, allowing installers to test the signal strength between 4G and radio frequency connections and install the optimal communications hub depending on which signal is strongest.

2. Implement a central smart meter data cache (with an opt-out mechanism), substantially improving data integrity for smart meters with sporadic communication issues.

3. Start work on the next generation smart meter protocol to put the UK at the forefront of innovation, learning the lessons of the ongoing rollout programme and the technological limitations of SMETS2.

What next for SmartShift?

Despite the challenges we have uncovered, we are committed to working with our customers, and our smart meter data service provider, to make the best of the data we can obtain. 

For the minority of cases where smart meter data is unavailable we hope to explore solutions that would allow us to bypass the issues outlined above. We are also engaging with the UK Government and the energy regulator to make them aware of our experiences as a startup operating in this space, in the hope that changes can be made that will improve smart meter data integrity and accessibility over time.

Regardless of the issues we outline here, our advice remains that if you can get a smart meter, you should.