Wednesday 28 July 2010

ESTA welcomes Smart Meter prospectus

The government's Annual Energy Statement has been broadly welcomed by the Energy Services and Technology Association.

ESTA's executive director Alan Aldridge was pleased to see the Smart Metering prospectus issued promptly and welcomed its ambition to improve on the 2020 timescale.

He told ELN: "We are particularly keen to ensure that the non-domestic sector has the flexibility to decide how to proceed, e.g. advanced or smart meters; central or dedicated data collection. We are therefore delighted to see that there is no mandate proposed to use the DCC on smaller non-domestic sites.

"This will reduce any issues arising from the smart vs. advanced meter debate and give non-domestic consumers choice.This is particularly important as we estimate that up to 20% of non-domestic properties are owned by larger companies and these are likely to change ownership and therefore management regime.

"We also applaud the notion that consumers will have control of their metered data. We envisage that this will affect the raw meter data and that to provide this data in a processed form will involve a cost which consumers bear. However, it opens up immense potential for smaller sites to use energy services providers to improve their sites and bring much needed energy management activity to the SME sector.