Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the proportion of installed smart meters that cannot work because they do not have adequate mobile signal.

During the current Foundation Stage of the roll-out of smart metering, energy suppliers are installing smart meters using their own communications systems, which typically use mobile phone network services. The Government does not hold information on the adequacy of the coverage of these communications systems.

For the main installation stage beginning later this year, the Data and Communications Company (DCC) is putting in place a shared communications network across GB to send and receive information from smart meters to energy suppliers, energy network operators and energy service companies via a Wide Area Network (WAN) using both cellular and long range radio technologies.

The DCC has contracted services to provide coverage of at least 99.25% of GB premises by the end of 2020 and has already achieved coverage of more than 80% of GB premises.