Introduction
Am I just lucky? Did my smart meter spring into life due to some alignment with the technology gods on that Friday afternoon in September in a garage in Blackburn? Are there wider lessons to be learnt?
Raising the Height of the Communications
Hub was the Solution to Poor WAN Signal
for me in Sept 2024 - the 6th engineer visit from Installation in June 2021
0.7% or 10%?
Some Googling gave me two numbers:
- The Data Communications Company (DCC) claim that only 0.7% of premises (or around 200,000) are not covered by their Wide Area Network (WAN).
- UK Government/BBC say that over 10% or 4 million smart meters do not work (see my post "4 Million Smart Meters Don't Work") because they cannot communicate with the energy providers (via DCC).
However, the BBC report is about both gas meters and electricity meters, my focus is really the electricity meter. For these the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnez) figures for June 2024 are 1.4million smart electricity meters not working out of 19.5million installed, or 7.1%.
But the difference is still over 10x; why?
The plot thickened when I read that Ofgem (the industry regulator) says that the DCC is obligated to provide coverage to at least 99.25% of premises in the UK and the DCC subcontractor for the Northern region, Arqiva, claims, in their June 2022 Annual report to have had 99.5% coverage in 2021, for the North of England and Scotland.
What does coverage mean to DCC and Arqiva. I could not find their definition nor any details on where the 200,000 premises that are not covered are located. Does coverage mean something different to 'a signal good enough to make a smart meter work'? Is it that the signal is fine and the installation engineers are just no good at installing the meters?
...and then another question occurred to me: the over 10%/1.4 million non-working smart electricity meters reported by Desnez seems to cover only smart meters not operating in smart mode (ie "traditional mode"). Are there other meters like mine that for a period (before raisingthe height of the comms hub) missed readings on some days? How many people has this affected? Does this issue matter? Will the users of these smart meters be able to use flexible tariffs and be rewarded for their contribution to getting to net zero?
Why the 10x difference?
Can both 99.5% coverage of premises in the North and 10% non-smart smart meters both be correct? I found this diagram on the DCC website:
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The Smart Meter Eco System is Complicated - this diagram is from https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/ |
To me, it sounds like there are different view points from within this eco system:
- Arqiva and DCC are in the 'it's all on plan' camp - all we need to do is get the last 0.7% working
- The Energy suppliers provided the figures for Desnez and they seem to be in the 'Houston, we have a problem' camp.
The responsibilities are perhaps a clue:
- DCC are responsible for the WAN and providing the Communications Hubs that connect smart meters to the WAN (the DCC budget report gives a figure of £138 million to be spent on communications hubs in 2025, rising to over £200million in 2027)
- The energy suppliers are at the 'coal face' having to install individual smart meters and get the comms hub to work.
Now, if one individual engineer is struggling to install working smart meters then I might believe that the problem is with that engineer. But if many engineers are struggling, then the issue must be in the bigger picture. My discussions with engineers visiting my home gave me an impression of a highly competent and knowledgeable team, keen to help and get my smart meter to work; however, the equipment and options available to them are limited to replacing a meter and requesting someone at their base to see if they can connect to it over the WAN. My take is that while in some cases there may just be a need for a stronger signal, it could well be that giving installation engineers more backup and options may resolve many issues:
- Comms hub - sensitive for weak signals
- Comms hub - signal transmission strength
- Help with identifying obstructions to the signal
- Comms hub mounting options to avoid obstructions to the signal
- An instrument to measure signal strength
- Better information provided to engineers
- A proven and standardised Installation process
- Etc.
My take is that installation engineers understand the issues, for example, one engineer who visited me, feels that obstruction to the signal is an issue affecting many homes that he has worked on, eg a house with a non-working smart meter in a cellar Vs next door with a working smart meter above ground. Is the reason for the gap (0.7% Vs 10%) that, while many homes have a good signal outside, the smart meter comms hub is not designed to suit the location of the meter in these houses? Perhaps for 9.3% of homes, while there is good signal in the street outside, the electricity meter is in a location in the house with poor signal?
It would be interesting to get DCCs explanation for the gap between the 0.7% and 10% non-working meters. What is wrong with the 9.3% of meters/comms hubs that are in areas covered by DCC and the smart meter does not work?
Does Missing Data / Unreliable Coverage Matter?
In my case, I had a period of a few months where data for odd days was not reported - I have not seen a number for how many meters are affected by this issue of unreliable data reporting. My sense is that this number is in addition to the 10% of meters working in "traditional mode". Is this a significant number? Is this a significant barrier to receiving the financial incentives for low carbon technology (heat pumps, EVs, solar panels/batteries)...
...on the latter question the result for the customer (in my case) was a phone call to Octopus every month so that they could manually request the missing readings. Now, while the people at Octopus are very nice, I would not want this as a long term relationship - I lasted just over 2 months before I got frustrated with the situation. Perhaps I lack patience. I would be intrigued to know what Octopus do if the customer does not request the missing readings? Do they bill on standard (non-flexible) rates or would they, unprompted, make the request for missing readings. My experience is that Octopus bill at standard rates, rather than requesting a manual re-read of missing data, unless they are prompted. Of course it could be that I was unlucky and this is not typical.
Energy suppliers and smart meter users with unreliable connections please do comment.
If my experience is typical then users with unreliable WAN connections will be on standard rates and miss the return on investment possible with flexible rates. How many premises have unreliable data reporting from their smart meters?
Smart Meter Reputation
Martin Lewis points out that the problem is worse than the 10% of non-working meters - the 'brand' reputation of smart meters is so poor that the 40% of people who do not have a smart meter yet will not want the hassle of getting one.
How do we fix this?
During my career as an Engineer I have run into a few cases where systems did not perform as expected by customers. Each situation is different, but there are a couple of common threads in resolving problems:
- Transparency - data available to all stakeholders (in this case: users, DCC, Energy suppliers, journalists, politicians...)
- Clarity on who is responsible for each part of the problem and solution.
Transparency
Imagine a map of the UK showing the latest smart meter data, published on the internet, available for anyone to read - view the whole country or zoom in to street level.
It would help engineers install meters if the map showed signal strength and areas not covered by the DCC WAN. It would help show if this is a straight forward install in an area with good signal or do they need to worry about optimising the comms hub location?
Showing WAN radio mast locations might help engineers assess obstructions to the signal; potentially useful when refining hub location.
Where smart meter users give permission, then the exact location of their meter could be shown and, perhaps by postcode area for those who wish to be anonymous. With each meter its WAN status and if problems who is responsible for fixing this (eg Octopus, Ovo, DCC...). If I see that all of my neighbours have working smart meters, then perhaps I will say yes to having one installed?
Zooming out on the
map might give statistics for an area: %age of working smart meters, %age with
issues, etc. Easier for everyone in the DCC team to see where they have problems still to solve.
As well as practical help for engineers this would also highlight accountability for solution (eg energy provider or network provider)
Clarity on Who is Responsible
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Ofgem also have a handy guide: |
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The smart meter eco system is complicated. Below is my take on who is responsible for some of the key parts of the problem. These organisations all employ talented engineers with in depth knowledge of the problems, but I couldn't resist adding my thoughts (based on limited information) on what might be done to help solve the problems: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Energy suppliers and DCC - please do comment on your areas of responsibility - have I got this right?
Smart Meter Reputation
Word of mouth is key. If a customer ends up waiting in all day on 5 occasions for 5 engineer visits then they will likely say bad things about smart meters...
...on the other hand, if installation is smooth and quick and users see benefits of £100's per year then the remaining 40% will be clamouring to have a smart meter installed.
Additional Costs
A web based reporting tool, comms hubs with longer remote cables, instruments for measuring signal strength, etc will have a cost...
...but, based on my experience, getting a smart meter to work, with the current (trial and error) approach in an area with less than perfect signal (but still within the 99.7% DCC WAN signal coverage area?) means:
- 6 engineer visits
- 3 comms hubs tried
- 2 electric meters tried
- 2 gas meters tried
- 28 phone calls with the energy supplier
- 43 e-mails with the energy supplier
It sounds like this cost will be multiplied by 1.4million non-working smart meters amongst the current install base.
I am guessing that the initial investment in a more intelligent approach to installation would be quickly repaid. I am also guessing that, without a robust and reliable product, the costs will only increase in trying to convince the remaining 40% of the population to convert to smart meters and/or trying to force an installation on an increasingly reluctant public...
...and then there is the cost to the planet if we do not accelerate the adoption of new technology like heat pumps, EVs and solar panels - if these are shown to save money then the adoption will accelerate - robust smart meter communication is part of that.
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