Smart Metering Consumer Impact Study

LCP Delta provided a set of key recommendations for the Utility Regulator (UR) to support the experience of consumers in the electricity smart meter rollout in Northern Ireland.

Background

In the 2023 Energy Strategy Action Plan, the Department for the Economy NI (DfE) outlined their commitment to developing a plan for the rollout of electricity smart meters in Northern Ireland. To feed into the design of this rollout, the UR commissioned LCP Delta to carry out research into the lessons learned from other rollouts, with a focus on the experience of consumers. This supported another piece of research carried out by LCP Delta for the DfE on the smart metering design.

What the client needed and their key question(s)

UR wanted to understand the lessons learned from other smart meter rollouts, to support them in avoiding the issues experienced by consumers and adopt the aspects that have worked well.

Our solution

As the leading experts on the smart meters and digital energy, we understand the issues with other smart meter rollouts and the challenges it has raised for consumers. Our in-house expert, Nigel Timperley, has recently featured on a BBC Panorama on the GB smart meter rollout and written a blog: ‘Smart metering in Great Britain: what went wrong and how we fix it’.

We used our existing expertise and contacts to carry out a series of interviews with key stakeholders in both the GB and Republic of Ireland (RoI) smart meter rollouts. These explored:

• What went well in the RoI and GB rollouts?
• What were the challenges faced in these rollouts?
• What could be done differently in NI or if they were delivering the smart meter rollout again today?

Our impact

We analysed these interviews and provided a series of key recommendations for the NI smart meter rollout. These recommendations link to different stages of the consumer journey, from initial communication prior to smart meter installation to ongoing repair and maintenance. They included recommendations to:

• Take a network-led, geographically phased and opt-out approach to support higher installation rates and enable more targeted consumer communication
• Create a simple process for consumers, and suppliers, to access smart meter data
• Set up clear processes and assign responsibilities for the repair of smart meters and IHDs for the duration of their lifetime

These recommendations will be used to support the development of a consumer centric approach to the smart meter rollout in NI.