Industry news
Smart meters cut costs O
ne of UK’s largest infrastructure projects in our lifetime, the Smart meter roll out is set to replace 53 million household
and small business electricity and gas meters by 2020. Over five million Smart meters have already been installed by a selection of energy suppliers up and down the country and the project continues to gain momentum. With the support of energy services company
Energy Angels, a number of registered social landlords have been at the forefront of installing Smart meters in their properties during void periods. There are several advantages to this
approach, including reducing disruption for testing and cutting energy costs for landlords. Once the installation is completed, tenants can benefit from remote top-ups for prepay, accurate billing and no daily standing charges. The Smart Electricity meter is the hub of an
installation, communicating with a meter if one is present and with an In Home Display, or IHD unit. The IHD allows consumers to monitor their energy consumption in real time in order for them to understand, manage and ultimately reduce their energy usage and costs. This is contrary to current practices in which
consumers are billed without knowing their precise energy use – like driving a car with no
Experience in practice
Working with National Energy Action’s (NEA) Smart meter training for communities programme, WM Housing offer tenant training
on how IHDs work. The programme has helped Family Optima (Part of the WM Group) tenant Mr St John with Lewis Taylor, Energy Angels MD, and Mohammed Nasim, WM home energy advisor. Mr St John said: “We now check our IHD every
fuel gauge. Real time and historic energy usage information would help consumers make make better choices about how and when to use their energy as the IHD makes it instantly obvious which appliances use the most energy and consumers can modify their behaviours accordingly.
day and along with some simple energy saving tips, things we’d never really thought of, we’ve been able to spend less on our electricity.” WM Housing Group are committed to a
number of actions to help tenants reduce their utility bills and ensure more sustainable tenancies. Through their work with Energy Angels alone it is estimated tenants will save over £100,000 on energy bills in the coming year, and Smart Meters are at the heart of that strategy.
24 | HMM May 2017 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
