The U.K.’s £11 billion smart metering project is an IT disaster waiting to happen, according to a damning report by the Institute of Directors (IoD).
The long-standing lobby group late last week called for the scheme to be halted, altered or scrapped altogether on grounds that it will not lead to reduced energy consumption, is too expensive, and has the potential to saddle consumers with outmoded technology that is vulnerable to cyberattack.
"This scheme is far from smart," said Dan Lewis, senior infrastructure advisor at the IoD, in a statement on Friday.
"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," he claimed.
The European Union has a target of equipping 70% of consumers with a smart energy meter by 2020, but Lewis pointed out that 11 EU member states have ruled out deploying electricity smart meters and only five are pushing ahead to meet the target with gas meters.
The U.K. though is pursuing the deployment of both gas and electricity smart meters. The government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched the Smart Metering Implementation Programme (SMIP) in October 2012 in a bid to meet the EU’s targets.
However, the government’s Major Projects Authority, which reviewed SMIP in 2011, 2012 and 2013, has refused to publish any of its findings.
"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," said Lewis.
In September 2013, Telefonica UK signed a 15-year deal worth £1.5 billion that will see it provide communications services for SMIP for the central and southern regions of the country. Arqiva signed a similar deal worth £625 million for Scotland and northern England.
SMIP as a whole is expected to cost the government £10.9 billion.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has also criticised SMIP. In September 2014, the PAC estimated that it will cost £215 per household over the next five years, but consumers can only expect to save 2% on an average annual energy bill of £1,328.
"Even this is conditional on consumers changing their behaviour and cutting their energy use," said PAC chair Margaret Hodge, at the time.
She called on the DECC to review SMIP to ensure that costs do not escalate and that low-income households benefit from the scheme. She also urged the department and energy regulator Ofgem to minimise smart meter installation costs.
According to the IoD, more drastic action is necessary.
It recommended the government consider suspending the deployment or abandoning it altogether. Failing that, it suggested scrapping the requirement for an in-home smart meter display, reducing the rollout to only those premises that use a lot of energy, excluding flats and tower blocks from the deployment, or all of the above.
"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," Lewis warned.
Total Telecom reached out to the DECC, but with the U.K. parliament dissolved ahead of May’s general election, it was unable to respond.
