Smart Meters Bill (Second sitting)

Douglas Ross Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd Sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Clive Lewis]

Q When we talk about something that is at the heart of the demand side of the fourth industrial revolution, I guess you would expect us to be planning some years ahead to be able to make use of emerging technologies. What you seem to be saying at the moment is that this Bill does not do that. It is quite limited in its purview.

Dr Richard Fitton: Technology developers I am working with now are trying to make that work. That is how savings can be brought about. It helps things like grid smoothing and demand-load shift.

Dr Sarah Darby: I would add that it is important to consider stuff talking to people through the display. When people ask for a smart meter, or when they are getting one, the bit they are really interested in—almost always—is the display. The single most powerful reason people have for wanting or appreciating a smart meter is that they get visibility of their energy use.

The knock-on effect from that is also very important in terms of the future energy outlook. For example, no amount of smart technology will insulate your walls for you. There are still a lot of unsmart things that need to be done to our building stock in this country, for example, that the smart revolution will not actually do.

On the other hand, if smart technology can be used to communicate to people to get them thinking more about what can be done, and if it can be combined with advice and guidance so that they have clearer ideas about what options are open to them—if there is support for the metering in that way—a lot can be done to take us forward. I want to emphasise that aspect of it as well, in terms of communication.

Dr Richard Fitton: We are carrying out that type of work with the International Energy Agency—taking in this data and processing it in such a way that building physics can be incorporated with the algorithm so that we can then say, “These buildings are likely to need some type of intervention to make them cheaper, more fuel efficient and more comfortable for the occupant.”

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

Q Dr Darby, in the information you provided you said that it is important to conduct the remaining smart roll-out well rather than do so at speed, and then you gave three main reasons for that. I am not sure whether you were here for the evidence session this morning, but I raised concerns about my own constituency in Moray in the north-east of Scotland, and other more remote and rural areas, where people want smart meters but the installation is not happening particularly quickly.

One of your main concerns about rolling out quickly is that customers will feel pressured into adopting smart meters; yet I have constituents who want smart meters but cannot get them. For example, a village hall, the Houldsworth Institute in Dallas, has had people out to try to get one installed, but there is no mobile phone reception—it is in a blackspot. How do you think your evidence relates to people who want to see the roll-out far quicker, but are hampered because the technologies do not allow it or we do not have enough installations happening in the more remote and rural areas compared with the more urban areas?

Dr Sarah Darby: That would be an argument for paying special attention to such areas and thinking how that could be addressed. It does seem to me that the strength of the programme so far is that it is voluntary, and that the early learning is being done by people who are already well-disposed to it and will perhaps put up with any kind of teething glitches that go on. They will adapt and then, if they are satisfied, will pass the word on to others so that others will want a smart meter too.

If we speed up, the amount of attention paid to the installation process will almost inevitably drop off. There will be pressure on installers just to go into a building, put the kit in and get out, and not to spend time doing the things that customers have said they appreciate about the roll-out so far: having someone who will explain stuff to them and show them how to use the equipment, and having that level of support to the installation. If we lose that through speeding up the whole process, the programme will suffer greatly in the long run.

[Douglas Ross]

Q The concern I am trying to get at is that constituents such as mine will eventually get frustrated with always being at the end of the queue. If we cannot accelerate the process at all and suppliers continue to go for doing mass numbers in more urban areas, we have a real risk that the communities that would benefit the most from these smart meters will always be at the end of the queue. If it takes so long to get to them, we might actually disenfranchise so many people.

Dr Sarah Darby: Yes, they might get turned off.

[Douglas Ross]

Q So you could accept that as being a reason in some cases to accelerate, if possible, without compromising the other elements?

Dr Sarah Darby: Yes—without compromising the programme as a whole.

[Steve McCabe]

Q Do you know what happens to all the old meters? How are they disposed of when we put in these new smart meters, and what happens to the smart meters when they come to the end of their life? Has BEIS issued any guidance on how those should be recycled? I guess I am wondering whether there is a landfill somewhere full of old smart meters or old non-smart meters.

Dr Sarah Darby: You would have to ask BEIS about that.

Dr Richard Fitton: I remember seeing in the trade press that some consideration is being made of recycling existing meters, but I do not know. Again, it is an excellent sustainability—