This statement by consumer champion Martin Lewis has been widely reported today: "The rollout of the smart meters has been a disgrace in this country. Twenty percent of them don't work ...”. I saw it at second or third hand from this article, but I haven’t been able to find the source if it wasn’t in an attributable interview the Express had with him.
Does anyone know what the basis for this assertion is and where it was first made? Is it true?
EDIT: The government has revised up these official figures as it turns out some Suppliers gave them inaccurate figures. The revised current figures are in a later post in this thread
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The government Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has a lower figure in its last report. See below.
This is an often quoted figure, although recently the government has been using a 2.7m figure sometimes from DNEZ.
It is difficult to know how accurate these figures are, for example, we do see examples on the forum where it appears ovo think a smart meter is working but it isn't in some way.
I do see short-term issues with my meter connection, whether they are picked up in the stats i don't know. It doesn't mean my bills are wrong on a regular basis, just I have to be careful what I am looking at sometimes.
It may be Martin Lewis has been mis quoted without knowing exactly what he was referring to with the figures. I haven’t heard or seen where Martin said this.
So the majority of smart meters/connections/accounts are working, perhaps around 90% plus or minus a bit at any one time, but clearly we see some painful examples with issues on the forum. It won't be the same people with issues all the time. Some are short term, some are more serious than others.
These meters constantly self-test and self-calibrate over 5,000 times a day. I very much doubt they’d go massively out of line without setting off an alarm.
Based on what you described, a MAT was the wrong move to make. It was probably a comms issue.
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I apologise for the smart meter issues your mother has experienced since her move from SSE. Having recently upgraded from a traditional key meter to a smart meter myself, I can share some of my own experiences.
One key advantage is that my readings are now sent automatically, eliminating the risk of unbilled usage. I also have access to more detailed data, making it easier to manage my energy consumption and identify when and where I use the most power.
It seems articles like the one mentioned in this discussion were designed to provoke a reaction, with little basis in research or evidence.
We have a few helpful articles on the Forum which give more information that might be useful:
In my opinion, one of the biggest problems is that too many people in the media (including St Martin Lewis) appear not to know or care about the difference between a Smart Meter (those boring white things with the odd flashing light) and the pretty In Home Display. Almost every article and every TV report shows an IHD, not an actual meter!! Is it any wonder that the average person thinks that the pretty IHD is their actual smart meter? I even saw someone on another forum recently saying that they had disconnected their smart meter and it was now in the drawer in the kitchen with no power source. I am one of those people who logs into their OVO account every day and I actually have multiple spreadsheets from the date my smart meters were installed in September 2023 showing my electricity and gas usage for each day and the lowest outdoor temperature of each day! The electricity spreadsheets include my half hourly usage data for every day too. I also have another spreadsheet that calculates what would be a “sensible” Direct Debit for me to cover my future estimated usage as shown on the “My Plan” section of the my OVO webpage. Yes, I am a data nerd!
@Bendog thanks for your helpful insight here. You’re absolutely right in what you’re saying, the way advertising etc has promoted smart meters has caused this widespread misconception about the In Home Display being the smart meter for some time now.
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