Smart meter roll-out could be IT "disaster"

The Institute of Directors has called for the Smart Meters scheme to be “halted, altered or scrapped to avoid unjustified, over-engineered and expensive mistakes.” The report named, “Not too clever: Will smart meters be the next Government IT disaster?” The £11 billion scheme has been branded by IoD as “the largest IT project in history unwanted by consumers, devoid of credibility and mind-blowingly expensive.” It has called for the Government to consider making a fresh start.

The smart meter programme has the target of installing 100 million new pieces of kit in homes and businesses by 2020.

The author of the report, Dan Lewis, Senior Infrastructure Advisor at the IoD said:

“The political consensus is a conspiracy of silence among politicians in thrall to big ideas and even bigger budgets. The professed aims of the Smart Meter programme are laudable, and we all recognise the benefits of reducing consumption and increasing energy awareness. But there is little credible evidence to suggest that a scheme of this size and complexity will achieve those goals."??The IoD highlighted a number of key concerns:

1. 11 nations have rules out the smart meters and only 5 are pushing towards the 2020 target.

2. The Government does not publish any of the reports on the smart meters by the Major Projects Authority.

3. The cost-benefit analysis of the Department for Energy and Climate Change is difficult to read as it is so heavily redacted.

4. The network could be subject to cyber attach.

Lewis continued:

“This scheme is far from smart. The dishonourable roll call of government IT projects that have haemorrhaged vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to no discernible effect needs no further additions. Consumers will not forgive the already unpopular energy companies for a costly programme which fails to deliver and ends up making them poorer.” “Without a change of direction, whoever wins the general election is at risk of overseeing a spectacular failure in the next parliament. They would be well-advised to consider a fresh start. Consumers do not want the meters, they have proved a costly mistake in countries where they have been rolled out, and the Government is withholding key details about their costs and benefits.” “This makes for a programme which is devoid of credibility, over-engineered and mind-blowingly expensive. Perhaps the only reason why the cost and ambition of this project has not become a national scandal already is because of a conspiracy of silence among politicians in thrall to big ideas and even bigger budgets."

IoD concluded by making the following recommendations:

1. Halt the smart meter roll out.

2. Remove the requirement for an in home display which will have a cost of £800 million. They will be out of date in a few years and the meters could instead connect into the PCs, tablets and phones of the consumer.

3. Limit the roll out to those homes with high energy usage as this would reduce the scale of the roll out by 80%.

4. Make the programme voluntary to be offered to customers at their expense rather than a subsidy for all.

5. Abandon the smart meter roll out the focus on the development of a suitable application instead.

Lewis concluded:

“We know that an incoming government will be under intense financial pressure, having to find further cuts to public spending. This does not fit well with increasing energy bills for a project that has such unrealistic targets, such large costs and such uncertain benefits.”