Category: Smart Meters

UK Smart Meter rollout – will new targets make a difference?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Energy and Energy Markets, Information Technology, Smart Meters, Technology

Reading the status of the UK’s rollout of Smart Meters to consumers just reinforces how woeful this programme continues to be. At the end of March 2025, 61% of all domestic meters were smart operating in ’smart mode’, and in the latest data published a few days ago this number rose to just 63% at the end of June 2025. It’s pretty clear that this programme, running since 2012, has years left to run before all households have a properly functioning smart meter. When launched in 2012, consumers were told this programme would modernise and empower their energy use, support a greener grid, ensure accurate bills and lower costs, and be complete by 2019. The reality for people, who are paying for the programme and its delays through their energy bills, has been somewhat different.

By the end of December 2025, the current rollout targets – much revised since 2019 – require suppliers to have ‘delivered’ smart meters to 74.5% of domestic premises. Note that the target is not ‘delivered and operating in smart mode’. The government is consulting suppliers  on a post-2025 framework to deliver service improvements and an  obligation to complete the domestic rollout by 2030. It feels like ‘Deja vu’! The government asserts that the rollout so far provides robust evidence that consumers with smart meters are achieving sustained savings of 3% for electricity and 2.2% for gas. That’s hardly impressive for a £13bn programme. In fact, most people feel that any reduction in their energy use has been driven by cost of living and energy crisis factors, not smart meters. The Badger thinks those associated with energy policy seem unable to recognise the programme for what it is – a ‘White Elephant’ in the eyes of the domestic consumer.

Why is it a ‘White Elephant’? Well, there’s missed targets with the goal of having properly functioning smart meters in every home being revised many times and probably being delivered a minimum of 10 years late. There’s the ballooning costs with consumers footing the bill and seeing little tangible return. There’s the technical failures with many installed meters not functioning properly and first-generation SMETS1 meters losing functionality and turning ‘dumb’ when switching suppliers. There’s the poor programme strategy from the outset, something obvious when comparing with more successful rollouts in Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Japan, the USA and China. There’s also the abject failure to overcome consumer distrust and show them savings in their energy bills. The Badger is resisting the temptation to go on.

After more than 13 years, adverts like those here and here haven’t changed UK consumer scepticism. Consumers are distrustful, technology has moved on, delivery by politicians and suppliers is poor, and a new framework for 2026 onwards is only going to achieve one thing – give this elephant another lick of white paint…

Smart Meters…again…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Energy and Energy Markets, Information Technology, Smart Meters, Transformation

The UK Smart Meter rollout programme missed its original completion date of 2019 and new arrangements were established for the rollout to get, as a minimum, a smart meter installed in 80% of UK homes by the end of December 2025. That number‘s still a long way short of the original 100% ambition, and it’s since been watered down to ~75%. The Government’s Smart Meter Statistics reports for Q3 2023 and Q3 2024 show the numbers stood at 59% and 65%, respectively. Not all installed meters are operating in ‘smart mode’ so, in reality, the numbers where smart mode is in operation are ~10% lower. However, regardless of how you look at the numbers, progress of 6% over a full year doesn’t provide any confidence that the end of 2025 minimum target will be met. Perhaps the next government report for Q4 2024 will paint a more positive picture? Unlikely.

The UK government and the enterprises delivering the programme are, no doubt, already discussing the consequences of falling short of 2025’s minimum target. Two things seem certain. Firstly, the rollout will continue for years beyond 2025, with some kind of reset dressed up by spin that covers some difficult realities. Secondly, the consumer will continue paying for the programme through their energy bills for a long time yet. Remember, the benefit to the consumer is miniscule compared to the benefit to the energy supply companies.

If the 6% rise in on-premises smart meters between Q3 2023 and Q3 2024 typifies  rollout progress for the coming years, you don’t have to be a genius to see that achieving 100% this decade is questionable. The programme’s cost ~£13.5bn, has been running for  >12 years, and there are millions of meters still not operating properly in homes. It’s supposedly a national infrastructure programme vital for modernising the UK energy system, improving energy security and resilience, and supporting net-zero greenhouse gas ambitions. Public scepticism, however, is unabated. Programmes of this ilk are, of course, always challenging, but many countries in Europe have already achieved or surpassed 80% penetration with their own smart meter rollouts and so something fundamental must explain why the UK’s programme consistently underperforms.

Smart meter obsolescence will require the replacement of many meters installed in homes in the coming years, and a communication upgrade is necessary to deal with the demise of 2G/3G communication networks. There doesn’t appear to be a forecast cost to complete the meter installations needed to achieve 100% penetration and these upgrade issues in the public domain yet. The Badger thus concludes that consumers will be footing the bill for years yet, and that it’s right to be sceptical about the ability to deliver any new national energy programmes to time, budget, quality, and tangible consumer benefit…  

Fixing dud pixels on a Smart Meter’s in-home display unit…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital Transformation, Energy and Energy Markets, Information Technology, Obsolescence, Smart Meters

The in-home display unit for the Badger’s energy Smart Meter sits unobtrusively on a shelf where it has reliable wireless connectivity to the meter itself. The unit rarely gets looked at. It doesn’t influence energy use and it should really be switched off and consigned to a cupboard. The reason it gets little attention is because the Badger’s always been a thrifty, sensible, and environmentally conscious energy user. A Smart Meter with its display unit hasn’t changed what was already an embedded discipline.

In recent months, the Badger’s noticed an increasing number of dud pixels appearing on  the in-home display screen. This reminded him of two things, firstly that component, communication, and software obsolescence is as much a factor for Smart Meters and their in-home display unit as it is for any smart device, and secondly that the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) raised concerns in October last year about built-in obsolescence in meters already installed. Apparently, out of 32.4 million meters installed by March 2023, 3 million (9%) were not working properly, and ~7 million (21%) will need replacement because 2G and 3G communication networks are being switched off by 2033. Consumers can expect to bear the associated costs in due course. The PAC also highlighted what has been long evident, namely that the UK rollout programme has failed to meet its original targets, repeatedly shifted completion deadlines, has no plan beyond 2025, and has failed to convince the public of the benefit.

The vision for the Smart Meter programme started taking shape way back in 2008 but published rollout statistics (here) make it difficult for the organisations involved to claim it’s a success. Programmes like this are, of course, always difficult, and so to test if the Badger’s objectivity has become distorted, Microsoft’s Copilot was asked ‘Is the UK Smart Meter Programme a success?’  The first line of its answer, ‘The verdict on the UK Smart Meter programme is somewhat mixed’ reassured the Badger that his objectivity is not overly distorted. The last line of Copilot’s response, ‘Whether it’s a complete success remains a matter of perspective’, represents ‘maybe, maybe not’ which is hardly an endorsement for a programme running for the best part of 15 years.

From the consumer’s perspective, this programme is clearly not a success. In fact, the way consumers have been treated throughout borders on the scandalous. With the UK Post Office scandal high in public consciousness, journalists are associating Smart Meters with the word ‘scandal’ more often. This item, a compelling 3-minute read, is a case in point. But let’s get back to the dud pixels on the Badger’s in-home display unit. This week the issue was fixed – by switching the unit off and consigning it to the back of a cupboard! If only that could happen with the Smart Meter programme itself…

Electricity – Domestic self-sufficiency…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Energy and Energy Markets, Obsolescence, Risk, Smart Meters

When there’s international turmoil, it’s the average person and their families that are impacted the most. This hit home last week while chatting to the Badger’s aunt after the funeral of his uncle, Jim, her husband. ‘To save electricity, we haven’t watched much television in the last few years’, she said. ‘Jim has also told our electricity supplier,’ she continued, ‘that we’d only have a Smart Meter if they put the daily standing charge down to its 2017 level’. Jim, always a plain speaker, had little time for politicians and the energy industry, and he was perpetually exercised that the daily standing charge on his electricity bill had risen from 15p in 2017 to 48p today. He hated the standing charge. He believed it was a way his supplier penalised him for diligently reducing the amount of actual electricity he’d used over the years in order to keep within his pension budget.

Jim saw the daily electricity standing charge rise by 200% between 2017 and 2023. He was outraged that he must pay this even if he used no electricity. Explanations from politicians, regulators, and energy suppliers justifying rises were ignored because he didn’t trust them! In today’s world of instant information, disinformation, misinformation, and vested interests, perhaps that’s not a surprise, especially amongst the elderly, vulnerable, and those struggling to make ends meet. Jim didn’t want a Smart Meter because he already closely managed his electricity use. He didn’t see what benefit it provided and so he didn’t see why he should be paying through his bills for the rollout programme, especially when it provided little real benefit for consumers. (The rollout continues to struggle – see here and here – and further delay and cost look inevitable).

The Badger’s aunt asked if Jim was right not to have a Smart Meter. Before the Badger could reply, she answered her own question with ‘Yes’. She then asked, ‘Can I avoid the electricity standing charge by completely disconnecting from the grid?’ The Badger nodded. ‘When I was a girl,’ she continued, ’we used a wood-fired range for heating and cooking. The wood came from trees in the local area. It was stored until it was good to burn, and we used candles and paraffin lamps for light. I miss those days because things were simpler. We were self-sufficient and had no reliance on massive companies for our basic needs’.

Jim would’ve been very happy today if he didn’t have to pay £175/year in standing charges because all his domestic electricity was produced from renewable sources at his home. With international turmoil and volatility in energy supply a norm, the day that domestic consumers routinely vote with their feet and isolate from the electricity grid in favour of self-sufficiently is getting nearer. Jim, RIP, will be grinning at the thought…

UK Smart Meter rollout…a dog’s breakfast

Posted on by The Information Badger in Smart Meters

Way back in September 2017, an item in The Register quoted Professor Gordon Hughes, an economist at the University of Edinburgh, as saying:

‘The introduction of the smart meter is a dog’s breakfast. At best it is misconceived and an astonishingly expensive project. For those claiming it will bring major savings, I say they need to grow up’.

Well, here we are in June 2023 and the UK National Audit Office’s recent, highly readable, update summary on the rollout of smart meters points out that the likely annual savings for a typical dual-fuel household with a smart meter functioning in smart mode, will amount to around three or four cans of cheap dog food per month. This isn’t a fit return for long-suffering households, especially when, as the NAO summary points out, the Smart Meter programme is one of the largest in government by whole-life cost,  equivalent in scale to the Crossrail railway project. It appears that ’a dog’s breakfast’ is, indeed, still an apt description for the programme given the benefit to energy consumers of just a few cans of dog food a month.

The NAO highlights that the rollout timescale has been extended again, costs continue to rise, and that less than 50% of UK households have a Smart Meter actually operating in smart mode. They also point out that energy suppliers and the Department of Energy Security & Net Zero disagree on the best way to achieve the remainder of the rollout. Having read the NAO summary in its entirety, the Badger’s left with the impression that the new targets are unlikely to be delivered by 2025, and that consumers will never get any real benefit from this programme. Hold on, you might say, this programme was never really about consumers, it’s about the bigger strategic picture of creating an efficient, decarbonised, modernised, UK power system better aligned to a 21st century energy generation mix containing a high proportion of renewables. That’s a fair point, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole thing looks like an expensive dog’s breakfast because the dynamics to date don’t support the premise that the  programme will meet any strategic objectives within the next decade.

The experience of many consumers with Smart Meters hasn’t been great, see here for example, and so mistrust of energy suppliers and ambivalence about the usefulness of the technology abounds. Regardless of ‘a big picture’, if a programme continually fails to deliver and breeds mistrust amongst consumers then it’s become a millstone. Notwithstanding this, there’s too much political, government, energy industry, and financial capital already invested for things to dramatically change. This means, of course, that tracking consumer benefits in terms of cans of dog food per month is here to stay for the foreseeable future!

Communications networks; one day the unthinkable will happen…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Risk, Smart Meters

Almost two years ago the Badger wrote an item entitled ‘Connection lost, please move your unit closer to the meter’, text which appeared on his home energy monitor when wireless connectivity to his domestic smart meter was lost. Today, the energy monitor and smart meter are in the same locations, the energy suppliers are the same, but energy has become a precious and expensive commodity due to world events. The Badger, like many, has been using his monitor in recent months to influence his energy usage, and he’s noticed that the ‘connection lost’ message has been slowly rising in frequency.    

Is the monitor faulty? Investigation suggests not. After eliminating possible sources of wireless interference, the Badger thinks the message might be triggered as a consequence of remote update activity associated with the smart meter and its communication network. It’s no big deal in the scheme of things, because powering the monitor off and on after the message appears usually re-establishes normal function. The message, however, has prompted the Badger to wonder more expansively about the wisdom of life that has digital communication networks at the heart of everything we do.  These days we seem to take things labelled ‘smart, ‘online’, ‘live’, ‘digital’, ‘streaming’, ‘driverless’, ‘cashless’, and ‘AI’ for granted and forget that they are all critically dependent on unseen communication networks.  What if catastrophe befell these networks? It’ll never happen, you might say, but have you given any thought to the impact on yourself or your family if it did? Probably not.

Our dependence on such networks is ever rising. Today, for example, the Badger cannot just turn up at his local community swimming pool, pay cash, have a swim, and pay cash for a post-swim coffee. A visit must be booked and paid for online in advance, and all refreshment and retail services at the pool are cashless. The Badger and the pool operator are thus already completely reliant on the unseen communication networks that are the ‘critical infrastructure’ of modern life. Most people assume that a truly catastrophic failure of this infrastructure is unthinkable because governments and enterprises know their importance and have policies, processes, and plans in place to mitigate the risks.  However, this assumption may be erroneous because, as events in recent years show, the unthinkable happens and plans may never be quite what they seem.

So, if you have a few minutes spare then give some thought to what you would do if a catastrophic network failure rendered everything ‘smart’, ‘online’, ‘live’,  ‘digital’, ‘streaming’, ‘driverless’, or ‘cashless’ unusable for weeks or more.  The Badger’s no doomster, but a life totally reliant on digitally connected services feels akin to placing all your eggs in one basket. That’s never a good idea because, as sure as eggs are eggs, one day the unthinkable will happen and we will all have to cope.    

Obsolescence; from ink cartridges to Smart Meters

Posted on by The Information Badger in Obsolescence, Smart Meters, Technology

Bah, humbug! Having to buy new ink cartridges for the Badger’s printer always rankles. New ones are expensive, cheaper repurposed ones often prove to be of variable quality and using ink refilling kits has rarely been successful. It rankles that a set of black and colour cartridges now cost 60% of the price for the printer in the first place! Ink cartridge pricing is, of course, part of how printer companies maximise their revenues from selling their printers, but that’s no comfort for the consumer who feels fleeced when the ink runs out.  

This grumpiness was caused by printing an article on obsolescence in the tech industry for a friend. The ink ran out halfway through with no replacement cartridges to hand. Given the advances in technology since ink cartridges became commonplace in the 1980s, surely, the Badger mused, ink cartridges should now be obsolete? Surely printers can be designed and built with ink reservoirs that users can fill cleanly from ink bottles? Surely that would be a cheaper, user-friendly, and environment-friendly approach? The printer companies, of course, prefer to preserve the current ‘obsolete’ status quo because it provides a predictable and profitable long term revenue stream.

Anyway, this little incident made the Badger read the part-printed document which highlighted that obsolescence, planned or otherwise, pervades our daily lives. The tech advances of the last forty years have shortened the lifespan of the gadgets, equipment,  and systems we use daily with many companies making huge amounts of money from this fact. Just look at the evolution of the smartphone over the last fifteen or so years. Whenever you bought one, a better one came along within months of your purchase, and the solution to accidental damage or dodgy battery life was a new, better, device rather than repair. Obsolescence was essentially built in.

Technology continues to advance rapidly and so there’s an inevitability that major programmes with tech at their heart will be obsolescent by the time they deliver. The UK’s slothful Smart Meter rollout programme neatly illustrates the point.  As the Data Communications Company (DCC),  the organisation responsible for ensuring the smart metering infrastructure remains fit-for-purpose, highlights in its plan, assimilating earlier and the latest meters into an infrastructure based on 2G/3G communication is an ongoing challenge when the comms network needs to be upgraded. The programme, initiated over a decade ago, has yet to deliver as originally conceived.

The Badger mentioned these points to his wife as he went out to buy some printer cartridges. She just grinned and said that everything in the world was obsolete; the car, the high street, cash, housing, the railways…and perhaps also her husband!  Apparently, the Badger is turning into a Victor Meldrew for 2023…

The UK energy crisis has done more to change consumer energy behaviour than Smart Meters…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Energy and Energy Markets, Smart Meters

If you cut through the flim-flam about how to change the way people behave, then there’s an immutable truth, namely that the quickest way to change behaviour is to change the amount of money people have in their pocket!  It’s a hard-nosed reality that lifestyle for most people is determined by whether their money covers the overheads of living, or not. Governments, businesses, and even project managers all use the lever of money in our pockets to pursue their overall political, business, or delivery objectives. They use, for example, tax changes, bonuses, and overtime payments to powerfully incentivise the behavioural changes they need to meet their objectives in an expected timescale.

The UK energy crisis neatly illustrates how our behaviour changes when our pockets take a financial hit. The huge rise in consumer electricity and gas prices has already cut consumption by much more than 10%.  If the Badger household is typical, then this cut in consumption may be much greater than reported. It seems that our behaviour of energy wastefulness is being replaced by a welcome return to a more disciplined ethos, and that’s a good thing! Clearly the dramatic rise in electricity and gas prices has hit everyone in the pocket and quickly changed our energy behaviour for the better. In fact, being a little mischievous, the rises have done more to permanently change consumer energy behaviour in a year, than the UK’s Smart Meter programme and its Einstein advertisements have achieved in a decade.

Which takes us to the UK Smart Meter statistics update published a few days ago on 24th November 2022. It shows that there are still less than 50% of domestic homes with a Smart Meter installed and operating in smart mode. The installation rate remains, at best, broadly flat. On the current trajectory, the rollout’s revised 2024/2025 deadlines will be missed yet again. The adoption of Smart Meters, which primarily benefit energy providers, thus still has a long way to go before it materially embeds any significant change to consumer behaviour. It’s easy, therefore, to conclude that the energy crisis hit to consumer pockets has changed behaviour more and faster, and for the long term, than the rollout of Smart Meters. It’s also a solid reminder that the quickest way to change the behaviour of an individual, a team, a workforce, a community, or a population, is to do something that puts money into, or takes money out of, their pockets.

Finally, the energy crisis has exposed many flaws in UK energy policy and UK energy markets that go back at least two decades. The installed level of Smart Meters coupled with the paucity of their impact in materially changing consumer energy behaviour, simply adds weight to the feeling that this programme is another one of these flaws.

UK Smart Meter rollout; updated official statistics due shortly…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Smart Meters, Transformation

The next official update of UK Smart Meter rollout statistics is due on the 25th August. The last update, here, covering the first quarter of 2022, showed that 41% and 48% of domestic gas and electricity meters, respectively, are now Smart Meters operating in smart mode. This means that, overall, 45% of all domestic meters are Smart Meters functioning as intended, an increase of 2.8 percentage points in the first quarter of 2022. It’ll be interesting to see how things have changed in the forthcoming update.

Since the National Audit Office’s spotlight on the rollout  in 2018, new obligations on energy suppliers, and a new target for completing the entire rollout by mid-2025, were introduced in July 2021 . The devil’s always in the detail with official statistics, so there’ll probably be scope in the forthcoming figures for politicians and energy suppliers to assert that things are on track to hit the new mid-2025 target. The Badger’s nose, however, is twitching, which is normally an early warning signal to expect more delay and cost. Why the twitch? Well, extrapolating into the future may be a dangerous game, especially in volatile energy supply, political, and economic times, but if the rollout continues to put just 2.8 percentage points on the overall number every quarter, then ~20% of the target will still be outstanding in mid-2025. If the forthcoming statistics are better than expected, then the Badger might need to recalibrate his nose as an early warning sensor!

Regardless of the marketing campaigns, Smart Meters provide little real benefit to the consumer who continues to pay for their rollout in their bills. They primarily benefit energy suppliers and the government, through various overhead and wholesale energy trading cost reductions and spin regarding commitments to 2050 net zero emissions. UK Subnational Electricity and Gas consumption statistics show that in 2020 domestic electricity consumption had reduced by 18.6% compared to its level in 2005. Similarly, domestic gas consumption had reduced by 28% over the same period. It’s notable that the national Smart Meter rollout began in earnest in 2016 and so hasn’t played any significant role in these reductions. The devil’s again in the detail, but you really have to be rather blinkered to believe otherwise.

The Badger feels that mainstream media’s focus on energy prices and their impact on the cost of living in recent months – a focus driven by post-pandemic, geo-political, and bust supplier issues – has changed the use of energy by consumers faster and more permanently than Smart Meters have or will do in the future. Well done the media, for a change! So, if the Badger’s twitchy nose still has some credibility, what’s next for the Smart Meter programme if the forthcoming rollout statistics are poor? Perhaps this expensive programme will achieve formal white elephant status and consumers will get a rebate? Dream on…

Smart Meters; a continuing tale of woe…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Smart Meters

The cost of electricity and gas is a hot topic and, unsurprisingly, it came up in recent conversations with a busy millennial with a well-paid job, a 82-year-old widow living in social housing, and a 96-year-old widower still living independently in his own property. Apart from energy prices, a common theme ran through all these conversations, namely a bad experience with their energy provider and smart meters.

The millennial is rarely at home and uses a small amount of energy. Their smart meter stopped functioning a year ago when their supplier moved their account to a new IT system and messed up the transfer. The disgruntled millennial has thus reverted to entering manual meter readings online as regular contact with their provider to resolve the meter problem has proved fruitless. Last week the provider emailed an energy forecast which is 3x the current level and recommended tripling the millennial’s monthly direct debit immediately. With a very healthy credit balance, and checking their historic usage, the believe the provider’s forecast is wide of the mark. Accordingly, they’ve refused to accept the recommended direct debit increase and are once again trying to get the provider to return their smart meter to normal function.

The two pensioners were apparently persuaded by their energy provider to ‘trial’ a smart meter many years ago. About three years ago, however, their meters stopped working and estimated bills have been issued and paid ever since. For a couple of years both pensioners have regularly received letters from their provider threatening legal action because they haven’t submitted a real meter reading. Both regularly telephone their supplier to explain that they cannot submit readings because the LCD displays on their meters no longer work! After every call, the provider has sent someone to read the meter, only for that person to find they cannot take a reading because the LCD isn’t working! The meter readers say an engineer is needed, and when the pensioners have diligently reported this back to their providers, another meter reader turns up to read the meter! The two elders now hate their supplier, hate smart meters, and feel trapped in a Groundhog Day! The 96-year-old has, however, now sought assistance from Citizen’s Advice.

Long before current energy price issues, these individuals have developed a deep distrust of energy providers and smart meters, compounded by media reports like this, this, and this.  They think smart meters are over-hyped, irrelevant to consumers, and already obsolete. The 96-year-old wryly tells anyone who will listen when they hear smart meters mentioned that they are a ‘tale of woe’! A look at  the most recent UK smart meter rollout metrics, suggests they are hardly a success after 11 years and billions in expenditure. The Badger senses that more rollout delay and cost to the consumer on the horizon, and if that’s the case then the 96-year-old has called it right – the whole thing really is ‘a tale of woe’.