Technology differences mean meters in northern England and Scotland may not work properly, energy firm body admits.
The way smart energy meters work in northern England and Scotland is causing issues for customers, BBC Panorama has been told.
It is a legal requirement, the government says, for suppliers to make sure smart meters are working and it expects suppliers to “resolve all issues at a much faster pace”. The cost of installing smart meters across Great Britain is estimated to be £13.5bn, according to the government. There are 36 million such devices in England, Wales and Scotland - but recent government figures show 3.5 million of them are not working properly.
He told the BBC he had wanted a smart meter so he could save energy on his bills and take advantage of a night-time rate that would make it cheaper to charge his electric car. She said there were “live conversations” within the industry about increasing the network range in the north of England and Scotland.
Another engineer, “Steve” working for a major energy supplier in Merseyside, who has experience of installing meters in homes on both sides of the regional divide, told us it was “far easier to complete a successful installation” in the south and Midlands where he could use the cellular network.The original roll-out of smart meters is a “textbook example of a project failure”, Sir Dieter Helm, a former government advisor on energy policy, told Panorama.
However, in what they described as “a highly unusual move”, Octopus told us that it had in fact decided to break the rules and fix his meter by connecting it to the mobile network. It added that “regulation has not moved with technology”. Most energy users pay a little bit extra on their bills towards the cost of installing and fixing smart meters. That is supposed to be offset by the savings they could make and the environmental benefits.
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