There are barriers while installing smart meters in homes across the UK.
That’s according to Sara Jane Asquith, Director of Metering and Smart Transformation at SSE, who explained some of the challenges the company faces.
She told ELN: “Today unfortunately we can’t offer smart meters to everybody and there are three reasons for that. The first is that we haven’t got technical solutions as an industry for all types of customers so there are customers who are living in tower blocks, for example, can’t have a smart meter today and we need to resolve that.
“The second is that because we can only offer SMETS1 [Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specifications] meters, we can’t offer it to customers who might want to switch suppliers. Customers often phone us and when we explain ‘if you switch supply, you will lose smart services’, they actually say ‘you know what, I’ll till SMETS2’ [Second version]. So we have to resolve that and get the DCC [Data and Communications Company] live.”
Another problem in the roll out of smart meters is the delay of the DCC going live.
DCC is responsible for linking the 53 million smart meters the government aims to install with energy suppliers, network operators and energy service companies.
That allows customers to manage and share their energy data with third parties and is expected to be online by spring.
Ms Asquith added: “We have a pretty suboptimal customer experience at the moment so we are keen to get the DCC live and very supportive of getting SMETS2 meters on the wall as quickly as we possibly can.”
She said SSE has so far installed 150,000 smart meters.