B.G.Smart Meters.

Terrylw1

British_Gas_company_representative wrote: »

Thank you utility_csa, with regard to your first point the DCC Procurement process is still in progress and will include some service level agreements for the reliability and speed of data communications to and from the metering system. Until those contracts are awarded and the infrastructure is established suppliers who have chosen to be active in smart metering are building or procuring an equivalent service themselves, based on their needs to deliver a high quality service to their customers. The standards may be marginally higher or lower than those ultimately provided by the DCC, but that doesn’t matter: it is our view that any differences will be immaterial to customers as key benefits are still delivered.
The major benefit that the DCC will bring is to the industry, rather than directly to customers, by simplifying change of supplier processes for smart metering.
With regard to your second point on published standards: it was a conscious decision by the UK Government to allow installations of smart meters to proceed ahead of further research into the optimal technical solutions (there will be more than one!) for the Home Area Network. This will be published soon as part of the Government’s specification for smart metering (‘SMETS2’). British Gas has started to install smart meters that align with the ‘SMETS1’ specification published by the Government and will be installing more of these this year. These will be counted by DECC as fully compliant meters that contribute to the completion of the smart metering rollout programme.
We’re happy to engage in a constructive debate to raise the understanding of the smart meter programme. It might take a bit longer if we have to check with our technical teams but we will come back to you with an answer!

Thanks for the response.

On point 2, its sounds favourable.

On point 1, which I have experience of outside of Bgas, I expect for many customers this will not work as suppliers have chosen to run trials completely differently. Some suppliers have also considered their meters will be "dumbed down" at the end of the trial, although still under consideration, which isn't really "smart". Its well known that the industry stance on this is they smart metering has to be "dumbed down" prior to a switch which is a clear statement that suppliers (I speak of others) have installed metering that won't be compliant with the DCC standards. In some cases, the trials haven't even included remote facilities.