‘My smart meter is driving me mad’

‘Smart’ meter [image credit: heartland.org]

The UK ‘smart’ meter roll-out fiasco rumbles on in its usual amateurish fashion. Pretending it has something to do with the climate is just window dressing.

Energy customers are under pressure to install smart meters, but many just don’t function properly, says BBC News.

There are government adverts on TV suggesting they are a small but important step to tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, companies are calling customers to ask them to switch, or telling them that the best deals are only available with a smart meter.

That’s what happened to Bryde Town, from Halifax. She says she wasn’t bothered about getting a smart meter. But after a number of calls and letters from her energy company, she agreed.

Things haven’t worked out well. “My smart meter loses connection, the weather seems to affect it, and it beeps all the time and the only way to stop it is to remove the batteries.”

She says it’s driving her round the bend.

Government figures show that until the end of 2018, nearly 15 million smart meters had been installed. But those same figures also show that only 12.5 million were operational.

That leaves 2.3 million smart meters that have been installed but are not functioning.

DCC is the company tasked with the job of making those devices smart again. But they’ve not implemented the technology to make that possible yet.

The company told the BBC: “We’ll be supporting energy suppliers to connect millions of first-generation meters to the central DCC network, bringing consumers the full benefits of smart metering, like the ability to switch supplier without losing smart functionality.”

Plenty of customers are totally unaware that that’s not possible already.

Full report here.