EDF extends smart metering

EDF Energy is expanding its smart metering trial as part of government plans to improve domestic electricity efficiency.

The expansion is being supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to allow EDF to carry out more testing with greater numbers of domestic and business users.

The current trial is set to last two years and test up to 3,000 combined gas and electricity consumption meters.

Benoit Laclau, EDF’s managing director of business improvement and technology, says the trial aims to resolve issues on how smart metering will work in practice.

‘We are working closely with a lot of government bodies, the Department of Trade and Industry, Defra and industry regulator Ofgem, on jointly-financed initiatives to find the best approach,’ he said.

The government’s recent Energy Review report highlighted smart metering as a way of encouraging consumers to use electricity more efficiently by making its cost clearer.

Laclau says the UK does not yet have smart meters because it has not been in anyone’s interest to install the technology.

‘Financially it has been too expensive. However, the cost of smart meters has reduced significantly,’ he said.

‘Over the past five or 10 years we have come to a point where there is a business case where the technology could begin to make sense in the near future.’

Other UK energy suppliers are concerned that the government is not taking a strong enough lead in making smart meters interoperable or establishing common technical standards.

Russell Hamblin-Boone, a spokesman for the Energy Retail Association, says energy companies disagree on how and when smart meters can be adopted.

‘They accept that it is going to happen, but they do not agree about what the timings should be,’ he said.

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Further Reading:

• Utilities query smart meter plan
• Can smart meters add up?
• Utility to introduce satellite tracking