Energy suppliers will get two more months until they have to stop rolling out early-version (‘Smets 1′) smart meters and have to install fully functional (‘Smets 2′) meters instead.
A consultation from BEIS proposes extending the deadline from 5 October to 5 December, with derogations until 15 March 2019 for some companies and for companies installing pre-payment meters.
Smets 2 meters are now undergoing so-called ‘end to end’ testing within the UK’s complex smart meter framework, which sees data transferred from meter to supplier via a central ‘data communications company’. New Power understands that testing has seen a high rate of failure, making it impossible of utilities to move to large-scale installation.
In its consultation BEIS said, “In setting the Smets1 end date the government needs to balance the maturity of the end-to-end system with the benefits to consumers of requiring as early a transition as possible. In response to evidence on progress and to avoid a hiatus in the smart meter rollout government has adjusted its minded-to position on the Smets1 end date to be set in regulation.”
Replacing Smets 1
The Smets 1 meters were intended to be an early stop-gap in the smart meter rollout, under which all households must be offered a smart meter by 2020, but all the meters so far installed – nearly 10 million electricity meters, according to figures from electricity industry body ElectraLink - are Smets 1.
They have less functionality than the Smets 2 meters and, most importantly for customers, they are not fully interoperable. So after switching supplier, customers have found their meter can no longer operate in ‘smart’ mode, so it has to be used as a dumb meter or replaced.
A significant number of smart meter installations – running at around 15,000 per month, according to ElectraLink figures – are in fact Smets 1 meters being replaced. None have been replaced with Smets 2 meters and some have been replaced with legacy ‘dumb’ meters, see below.
See New Power Report for monthly data, as we track the smart meter rollout with the assistance of ElectraLInk.
See the BEIS consultation here. The closing date is 14 August.