Smart Meters Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Lord Harrington of Watford and Thangam Debbonaire

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th November 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Richard Harrington]

The new clause has two points, as I see it. First, the smart meter system establishes a wireless home area network—HAN—in a consumer’s home that links the gas and electricity meters’ in-home display and the communications hub; and the communications hub establishes the network and manages the data across it. As with any wireless technology, various physical factors affect the performance of the HAN, such as what the building is made of or the thickness of the walls, as indeed we find with mobile phones in parts of the Palace of Westminster—in some places it works and in some it does not.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Mostly not!

[Richard Harrington]

The hon. Lady has been to my office. She is welcome again any time.

Those things do affect the signal strength in exactly the way that we are joking about—it is actually true. The distance between the various pieces of smart meter equipment will also affect the performance of the HAN—for example, where a meter is located away from the main residence or in the basement of a block of flats—but it is important that the HAN works, to deliver the benefits for consumers, such as the in-home display.

For the vast majority of premises the communications hub provides the necessary home network. In the small number of premises that it does not, some form of alternative will be needed to ensure there is a working HAN. If there is not, how can we ask people to take on smart meters? We have already used our section 88 powers to place obligations on energy suppliers to develop and deliver an alternative to this, which—to continue the use of expressions and abbreviations by the shadow Minister—I would call “Alt HAN.” The Alt HAN Forum, the Alternative Home Area Network Forum—believe me, there is one—has been established along with the Alt HAN Company and its board. This gives suppliers the framework to get on and develop the solutions they will need. The forum has developed a commercial strategy, which is being implemented, and a procurement exercise is currently under way, and we expect the pace of delivery to pick up next year. It is an important part of the roll-out and the Department has worked closely with the forum throughout the early stage of its setup, and we are continuing to do so. We are tracking progress through the smart metering implementation programme’s governance, and we will monitor on an ongoing basis and determine whether further regulation is needed—so it is ongoing work.

The second point mentioned in the new clause was the arrangement for the so-called “hard-to-reach” premises. Here we are talking about communication of data to and from the premises through the Wide Area Network—referred to so gracefully by the shadow Minster as the WAN—to energy suppliers via the DCC. There are some premises that it may be difficult for WAN communications to reach, due to the location’s surroundings, for example in built-up areas with tall buildings, but also in remote and mountainous areas. By the end of 2020, on the basis of existing solutions, we expect that 0.75% of premises will be without DCC WAN and reaching these will be disproportionately expensive, with costs likely to exceed benefits, but it is not a static solution. Through its licence we placed obligations on the DCC to take steps to explore other solutions, which could be used to fill any coverage gap. We have to look for ways to ensure that these premises are serviced, because otherwise they will never get full access to smart services, and we are pushing suppliers to innovate to find solutions that work for them and their customers. We have facilitated an industry-led group for this purpose, to consider possible solutions. Finally, customers without DCC WAN can still benefit from some smart services, such as consumption data shown on the in-home display.

Those are important areas, and I know they are quite technical and not of interest to many people, but I felt it was necessary to take the opportunity to explore them. As I have outlined, we are closely monitoring activity and development—we really are. That is very important and is part of the whole development. I do not consider it necessary to add a separate review process on top of the existing working arrangements, which are all very comprehensive. I hope the shadow Minister finds my explanation reassuring and on that basis will agree to withdraw the amendment.