Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Accepted
Need for current data to confirm smart meter monetary savings for consumers
Recommendation
These energy reductions show a slight improvement on earlier estimates included in the Department’s 2019 cost benefit analysis.26 The Department told us it considers the expected percentage reduction in energy use is being maintained and that in a ‘much higher energy price world’, the actual monetary benefits will have significantly increased.27 However, the Department needs more up-to-date data to be confident that smart meters are saving consumers money on their energy bills, in line with its expectations.28 It does not plan a full evaluation, including assessment of the impacts on consumers, until the completion of the rollout.29
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and sets a target implementation date of February 2025. It describes its ongoing data collection and evaluation programme, including recent published evidence on energy savings, and commits to designing a new phase of programme-wide evaluation and exploring additional data sources like the National Energy Efficiency Data framework.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: February 2025 2.2 The department has an ongoing programme of benefits data collection, monitoring, and evaluation which includes recent published evidence on energy savings and consumer benefits. Further substantive evaluation research to complement this is currently in development. 2.3 An independent evaluation of evidence on energy savings for households resulting from smart meters carried out by the Department’s Behavioural Insights Team was published in Summer 2023. This identified savings of 3.4% for electricity consumption and 3.0% for gas, in line with the programme’s assumptions of 3.0% and 2.2% for credit consumers. Wider consumer benefits were explored in recent published evaluation which focussed on consumers who may experience barriers in the energy market (e.g., those on lower incomes). A range of additional benefits were identified, such as the ability to top up and access balance information remotely offered by smart pre-payment meters. 2.4 This evidence was collected as part of an ongoing programme of data collection and monitoring capturing benefits across the roll-out, including energy consumption reductions, credit and pre-payment consumer experience, demand side response and flexibility and savings accruing to industry. 2.5 To supplement the department’s existing evidence base, DESNZ is in the process of designing a new phase of programme wide evaluation which will capture evidence on existing benefits in addition to potential further benefits resulting from innovation enabled by smart metering. Work to provide additional sources of evidence on energy savings is also underway, including testing the potential of the Department’s National Energy Efficiency Data framework (NEED) to provide estimates of impacts.