Smart meters can make homes more efficient, but only if they work

Smart meters stand to revolutionise the way that energy customers and suppliers interact. By automatically submitting meter readings, they can make bills more accurate, help customers access innovative new tariffs, and give suppliers the data they need to prioritise cheaper and more renewable energy sources. But smart meters can also make a difference inside people’s homes.

It is often highlighted that these devices will help customers manage energy consumption by providing insights into their usage, but this is only part of the story. Smart meters will also open the door to a whole range of other behind-the-scenes benefits.

With the ever-growing ‘Internet of Things’ bringing more efficient and connected technology to market all the time, half-hourly usage data and other feedback could be used to run devices more efficiently, reducing both customers’ bills and environmental impact.

However, if suppliers don’t make efforts to ensure that their meters are fully operational, we are effectively pouring time and money into installing ‘dumb’ 20^th century meters that cannot keep up with ‘smart’ 21^st century homes.

The household benefits of smart meters

As the net zero transition progresses, and the market grows for new smart home technologies, consumers have never had so many options to make their homes more energy efficient. These innovations include:

• Heat pumps, which could be used with a smart meter to heat water when energy is cheaper.
• Batteries, which could be charged with off-peak electricity, and discharged when tariffs are more expensive.
• Electric vehicles, which could be charged at night or other times when power is cheaper.
• White goods, such as fridges and washing machines, which could be optimised to do more energy-intensive tasks when electricity is cheapest.
• Solar PV, which in combination with a smart meter could help customers sell surplus clean energy back to the grid through initiatives like the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG).

In the coming years, we can expect new innovations to help households reduce their bills and their carbon footprints, but without addressing the issues affecting smart meters today, millions will miss out.

Installing smart meters is only half the battle

Citizens Advice has found that as many as 30% of smart meters installed in UK homes may not be functioning properly, and data from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) shows that 3.98 million meters had "temporarily lost smart functionality" at the end of 2023.

While we fully support the goal of putting a smart meter in every UK home, installing tens of millions of devices that will then only function in ‘dumb’ mode is a false economy, and will not help customers enjoy smarter, greener, and cheaper energy.

That’s why, in addition to meeting installation targets that on their own may not benefit our customers, we are using our dedicated Smart Meter Health teams to follow up and make sure every meter we install is functioning properly. As a result, industry data places us among the best suppliers for providing working smart meters.

To make the rollout a success, we would like to see other suppliers, regulators, and government take a similarly long term view to ensure smart meters are not just in people’s homes, but are making them better.

Find out what E.ON Next customers think about smart meters.