Smart Meter Rollout Costs
By Paul Homewood
I have contacted BEIS for the latest numbers they have on the cost of the smart meter rollout.
They have referred me to this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/smart-meter-roll-out-cost-benefit-analysis-2019
They reckon that between 2013 and 2034, the total cost will be £13.5bn:
Currently we are paying about £1 billion a year in our bills, about £40 per household, as energy companies simply pass the cost on. OFGEM also allow for smart meter costs in the Energy Price Cap.
BEIS maintain that savings from smart meters have already more than offset costs, but their calculations are laughable. The figures below are again for the full period, 2013 to 2034:
Consumer “benefits” are largely based around us all cutting back on energy usage. I certainly don’t know anybody who even looks at their meters on a regular basis, never mind turning heating or appliances off when they see what they are costing.
Even more absurdly, BEIS even include £1.4bn for “Time Savings”. They reckon that having smart meters will save us 32 minutes a year by avoiding a walk to the meter cupboard every three months. (It is curious that government wants us to waste hours a day cycling or bussing to work, but somehow there is no Time Cost associated with that!)
As I have always emphasised, if people really are so much better off, they would be queuing up to pay £500 to have smart meters installed!
The claimed supplier benefits are also a joke. About a third are supposed savings from avoided meter reads. This may have been true of the 1990s, but nowadays virtually everybody sends in meter readings via the internet, not only saving a meter reader being set, but also the cost of manually raising invoices.
As such, customers are already reaping the benefits of these savings, thanks to supplier discounts.
Most of the other supplier savings are based around admin costs, but again internet billing and so on have already massively reduced such costs.
The other claimed savings are pretty ephemeral too, such as “ Carbon Benefits” and “Demand Shifting”.
I suspect the official estimates for costs are also hopelessly optimistic, because there is no recognition of all of the problems already being identified. There are reports, for instance, that many of the older meters will need to be replaced in order to be compatible with new standards.
And as we know, many customers are already reporting that their smart meters do not connect to new suppliers when they move across.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
You find those numbers laughable?
You ain’t seen nothing yet!
Just wait until they start on Boris’ plan to fit 650,000 heat pumps every year.
Aiui we are currently onto the second generation of meters – “SMETS 2” – which address the problems of the first gen units such as supplier switching, etc.. Many millions of first-gen meters have been replaced with many more still to go.
However, within the timescale above, the frequency bands used by these meters (the old 2G/3G) will be re-assigned. Apparently upgrading is not viable so we will be into another round of replacements.
The programme has become a very costly perpetual motion machine.
Thanks for that v interesting nugget of info, Mike.
Look on the bright side: it will create Green Jobs.
Do the BEIS not have a stated duty of care for the welfare of the public? I am loathe to use the word “lying” in climate related matters because many of the people spouting nonsense in Parliament and the media actually believe the tosh they come out with. The people who prepared this heroic document, however, have no excuse whatsoever for being so wrong, and frankly deliberately misleading, as they clearly are. I can only conclude, therefore, that they are deliberately lying. Heads should roll but of course…
Shouldn’t I get a £40 rebate every year for not having a smart meter?
No but you get a “climate denier” medal and from Noami Oreskes, Micky Mann, “Sir” Ed Davey and Princess Nut Nut. Any good?
It always gets me cursing when the puerile adverts come on telly, saying how much money you will save by having a ‘smart’ meter.
Of course, ‘smart’ actually means bloody stupid today (c.f. ‘smart’ motorways.)
Even so, the only way you will save money is to use less energy. Period.
Nice to know how BEIS reckons you might save, but as you say Paul, their calculations are laughable.
Whoever dreamed this up wants sacking. Pronto!
Apparently, though, we have “all” suddenly warmed to green energy, according to columnist Alice Thomson in The Times. This is because Putin is making us think that way. She says that a poll by the “independent” Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit indicates that 57% (so not “all”) of people thought the best way to eliminate dependence on Russia was to expand wind and solar power. In the same piece she writes that Octopus Energy says we could eliminate our dependence on Russian gas within two years by building more onshore wind farms. Needless to say that quote came from their head of renewables who also claimed that in the last year alone they’ve had 1,500 communities asking them to build wind turbines.
Is The Times another of those publications that has accepted the green dollars from opaque sources?
Not quite.
The problem with The Times is that they can no longer afford sub-editors who would know enough about the subject to recognise the nonsense Alice Thompson is writing.
From what I recall of some of her previous columns she has an agenda of her own which reveals itself in this sort of copy. She would be unlikely to acknowledge the distinction between robust and fragile electricity generators.
The Times does not employ journalists. Propagandists and activists are on every page.
They are part of the problem we are experiencing now. Tom Whipples past two pieces linked to covid were a whitewash. All associated with Times news bear responsibility.
57%?? Surely a typo. I expected it to be 97%! So much more believable, no?
I am drafting a complaint to the ASA about the Octopus claims. The reality is that more wind is going to saddle us with much higher costs, as the Timera article hinted at. Plus much greater chances of outages.
Delve deeper and you may well find that the World’s most evil man – Bill Gates – has paid them some money in the same way that he has the Telegraph and by taking a majority stake in the Guardian. He has also funded the BBC – all through his money-laundering butter wouldn’t melt Foundation of course. All not connected to having any influence over them – is that a Gloucestershire Old Spot I can see coming in to land at Gatwick?
And the Big Lie in the article is that the UK does NOT rely on Russian gas. The little we have been getting could easily be sourced from elsewhere.
REM, wonder how many of those 1,500 communities have bothered to watch this enjoyable, myth destroying, 7 minute video from the Dutch engineer Jan Smelik?
Its called the ‘Impossibility of Windmills’.
Again:
link not cooperating but video is still available. The youtube video by Jan Smelik called the ‘Impossibility of Windmills’.
I see that they’re now bribing us to take them. We got a flier this morning offering £50 credit!
As they are free, why don’t you ask them to provide you with a dozen or more?
I’ve been anti this sh*t for a long time….however:
I suspect that many non SMETs type meters will be changed by force…that being on the need for calibration. I took the £50 from EDF because of that. I’m bothered by the possibility of these units able to shut off power via remote command. Seems likely.
Where the meter fails to “phone in” on the expected closure of 2G and/or 3G systems the readings can be submitted over the web.
Of course the UK utils authority does have the right to kick your door down to get to stuff….
Paul, I would have liked your article, but there’s nothing much to like in the madness you expose.
UK National Audit office in 2018 report said..https://www.nao.org.uk/report/rolling-out-smart-meters/
The facts are that the programme is late, the costs are escalating, and in 2017 the cost of installing smart meters was 50% higher than the Department assumed. 7.1 million extra SMETS1 meters have been rolled out because the Department wanted to speed up the programme. The Department knows that a large proportion of SMETS1 meters currently lose smart functionality after a switch in electricity supplier and there is real doubt about whether SMETS1 will ever provide the same functionality as SMETS2. The full functionality of the system is also dependent on the development of technology that is not yet developed.
There is also a report (2014) by Ontario Auditor General on the failure of smart meters to change consumer habits even though they were compulsory and had 3 time of day pricing bands.
Click to access 311en14.pdf
So why continue to flog a dead horse?
Quite. We could be saving at least £1bn off consumer bills by ditching it.
Who can forget he entry in House of Commons Hansard, Volume 623: debated on Wednesday 15 March 2017:
My bold.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-03-15/debates/0B80BC89-19E9-4194-9064-9334F4BAA469/BusinessEnergyAndIndustrialStrategy
So we are being charged £40 per year on our energy bills in order to save £47 per year by 2039 ?
It would have been cheaper to give everyone a free energy monitor such as the OWL monitor that you can fit yourself,, but that wouldn’t have allowed differential pricing or remote disconnection.
We all know why they want smart meters and its NOT for our benefit
Nothing ‘smart’ is for our benefit.
Can the BEIS tell us how many of these oh so smart meters don’t actually work? I have a gas meter at the back, outside, and the electric meter at the front of the house and inside. The two can’t talk to each other and nor can either connect to the Wi-Fi signal used to transmit the data to wherever it goes.
All those benefits are largely invented to make it look as though there is a net positive form the program so politicians can say so.
For example, the “benefit” of using less electricity (£7.6 billion) is not attributable to a smart meter, as the same effect can be arrived at by simply using less electricity in the absence of a smart meter.
The only obvious material benefit I can see is supply companies not having to employ people to read meters.
And of course the long term government policy “benefit” of being able to ration or switch off power to people’s homes is not one customers would recognise as being at all beneficial.
Slightly off topic. There was a letter in the Guardian yesterday from the former Deputy Director of the Office of Electricity Regulation castigating the large increases in the daily standing charges by gas and electricity companies recently.
“But the price of maintaining connections has not increased at all. It is the cost of buying wholesale gas and electricity that has gone up sharply, so there is no justification for raising standing charges………It is time for the regulator to look again at this blatant rip-off of poorer customers.”
Slightly off topic but this has reminded me of the idiocy of ministers without any clue about the real world.
I had a garage and MOT station for 30 years so kept abreast of MOT things, I recall a transport minister complaining about how MOT stations contributed to pollution and congestion as they where mainly in urban areas, he then went on to bemoan the fact that there wern’t any alonside the motorways! I remember thinking who on a visit to relatives or going on holiday thinks “oh I know I’ll get an MOT on the way”
These people are clueless.