Smart Meters Bill (Second sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateStephen Kerr
Main Page: Stephen Kerr (Conservative - Stirling)Department Debates - View all Stephen Kerr's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesNot at all. Mr Wiles, have you anything to add?
Richard Wiles: We have the ability to transmit data into the system that Derek has just referred to, to keep it live. On the point about how many units are kept in dumb mode, or put into dumb mode or non-smart mode, we do not get to see those figures. That is between the energy supply companies; it is not a direct result of the service that we offer, so I cannot give you a definite figure.
However, we can make sure that any unit put in the non-smart mode can be retained live and be reactivated at a later date, and that can be part of the enrolment and adoption figures. Even for smaller suppliers, if they inherit a smart meter system and do not wish to keep it running, or have a separate service until enrolment and adoption goes live, it can be reactivated at a later date.
Q
Derek Lickorish: I heard Mr Bullen talk about interoperability, but it is not interoperable unless you have the interim interoperability, which I discussed. Suppose these three cups in front of me here were Secure Meters’ mini DCC, CGI’s mini DCC and Trilliant’s mini DCC. If I had five million cups, I would line them all up, and each one of these three would be talking to a whole pack of cups. We have been able to get these boxes to talk to this box and this box. That is where the interoperability occurs.
Mr Lickorish, that is a very good example, but I have to tell you that for the Hansard reporters—[Laughter.]
Derek Lickorish: Then you will have access to more cups than I do. For the benefit of Hansard, we are saying that we have mini communication systems—each manufacturer has its own mini communication system—to talk to meters, whereas DCC will talk to the whole estate in one go. In Secure Meters’ case we have invested in it ourselves, for our consumers’ benefit, not just our customers’. It will talk to these other systems, and we have even demonstrated it to BEIS earlier this year, to show that it works.
Q
Derek Lickorish: That is an option you could take, but as currently structured, no one knows quite what will happen to them, as far as July 2018 is concerned, if they keep on doing this. I understand all the reasons and I want us to get the right outcome for the consumers and for the industry, but all the time we have uncertainty built into everything we are doing. For example, when is July 2018 coming to an end? A lot of other people who have not started on this are all waiting for SMETS 2, because it is always just round the corner. How big is the corner?
Q
Richard Wiles: The whole point of enrolment and adoption, which we are working on now, is to make sure that our estate will be able to go into DCC world and provide a similar level of functionality that SMETS offer. We are addressing that right now. It is an active programme that is underway. That will provide true interoperability, not just for the energy supply companies, but for any licensed holder of DCC, energy supply network operators and licensed third parties as well.
Q
Derek Lickorish: You can update them. This is a very detailed discussion and I am happy to talk to you separately about it. This term “unplugged” means that they may not be looking at the IHD. The system is still connected and has not been unplugged. If a secure meter has gone dumb, we can still talk to it, so it is not an issue.
Q
Richard Wiles: For our estates, part of the process is to make sure that when the initial releases come out, there is an upgrade path to ensure that the firmware on the devices is SMETS 1 compliant. We have had extremely high percentages—in the high 90s—over the upgrade paths to make sure that the firmware is compliant with the meters to ensure that they can be enrolled and adopted. We have excellent, proven records to show that we can do OTAs at scale, throughout the entire programme that we have been deploying SMETS 1. I do not believe that there is any issue with the product not meeting the standards.
Derek Lickorish: Similarly, we have had huge numbers of over the air firmware upgrades, which is where I think the rubber will start to hit the road for DCC when it starts doing that. Not only have we done that in this country in the way that Richard spoke about, we have been heavily involved in Australia—over a million meters, using silver springs technology, silver springs embedded in our meters.
Out there, we will have done millions of over the air firmware upgrades. It is not until you start that part of the journey that you really begin to understand the issues. That is why I say that this is the moment when the industry should be galvanised to start solving all these problems, and agree that the 2020 date should not be altered now, but that it is part of the journey to find out what else needs to be done, because there are so many world firsts and they take time to solve.
For the convenience of the Committee, I have four indications of questions that have to be asked before 2.45 pm, so moving on now to Mr Pawsey.
Three colleagues now wish to ask questions—Mr Kerr, Mr Lewis and Mr Morris—and we are aiming to finish at 3.15 pm.
Q
Sacha Deshmukh: You raise a good point. I am very enthusiastic about the smart British future. Consumer experience in terms of public engagement, particularly with nationally led projects, always teaches you to be very balanced and clear about the benefits available now, what they are building towards, when they will be available and the reality of that. It is about wanting to ensure that people can continue to trust the promise. Not least, all our communications through different channels are regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority, the Committee of Advertising Practice, the broadcast codes and so on. We need to be accurate in the promise to consumers today and give accurate expectations, but I very much take on board what you say.
For a number of our areas of activity, talking about why this matters for the bigger picture will be increasingly important. A consumer spoke to me recently in a focus group. Apropos of nothing, without any information, they essentially summed up an entire sustainable, reliable energy vision that really was a 60 to 100-page BEIS document. They got it and summed it up instantly, so you are right that the consumer appetite is strong. We just need to balance that with the accuracy of the promise to the consumer in the immediate term as well.
Dhara Vyas: I agree with Sacha. The only thing I would add is that I think we have to remember that not all consumers will either want, or be able to, engage. Customers and consumers need varying levels of support to engage with the benefit of not just smart meters but, as you say, the whole wider agenda. Smart meters may be the first internet-enabled thing in the home and it is really important that all consumers are supported to interact with it as much as they want to, or might not want to. There are always going to be some consumers who don’t want to and they should not be penalised for that.
Q
Sacha Deshmukh: Our organisation exists to support the roll-out, so our lifespan will be that of the roll-out.
Q
Dr Richard Fitton: Or indeed to some of the smart meters being installed today. I have swapped suppliers and they have taken away new smart meters, four or five months after. I do not know; sorry.
Q
Dr Richard Fitton: I believe, as the Minister has mentioned, that SMETS 1 are to be upgraded to SMETS 2 starting at some point next year. There is no particular technological challenge in connecting consumer access devices to SMETS 1 meters, but you can sympathise with some people who might be waiting for the full SMETS 2 systems to be installed. That seems commercially obvious to me.
Q
Dr Richard Fitton: We have been told.
Q
Dr Sarah Darby: There is evidence that people are making alterations in their everyday behaviour and that over time, from how the figures are going, they are thinking more about investing in energy efficiency. I say that because the evidence is that the energy-saving effect, compared with people who do not have smart meters, rises gently over time. You would think that people might be very keen at first to go around switching off all the lights and so on, but would then get a bit bored with it, and the effect would fall off, but that does not seem to happen. If you look at the large numbers of people we have data for over a long period of time—a few years—you see a gradual learning effect.
It is quite a small effect in aggregate. After the first year of roll-out, I think it was 1.5% or 2% for gas and electricity. The last I heard, which was May 2016, British Gas was talking 3% to 4% after a few years, on the basis of several hundred thousand customers. So there is a gradual learning effect. That is, of course, an average, and it will vary a lot between people. For some people, you may get quite a substantial effect; for some people, none at all.