The smart response to the energy crisis?

Smart meters are billed as the key to solving the impending energy crisis Britain.

But while a live display of energy costs and consumption can help teen parents bribe to spend less time in the shower, the test results indicate the key metros barely affect total energy consumption.

Between 2014 and 2019, all British households and small businesses have installed a smart meter, which shows exactly how much energy is used for each activity, a boiling cauldron of the television.

The idea is that by observing its use, people realize how useless they are and reduce their electricity and gas consumption, reducing your bills and carbon dioxide emissions. In some trials, the meters provide parents the information needed to give their children extra money – or reduce payments for housekeeping work of offspring – in exchange for turning the heat down and lights out. But in many cases, given the negligible savings – and often at the expense of family unity, with people arguing about energy use, says Tom Hargreaves, University of East Anglia in Environmental Sciences.

Moreover, the biggest test of smart meters to date, conducted in 18,000 households by energy regulator Ofgem, shows how difficult it would be for many people to reduce their energy consumption. The two-year trial found that participating families use energy only 3 percent less than they would without the smart meter.

This figure is higher than 2. 8 percent reduction in consumption of electricity and 2 percent drop in the use of gas that the government expects to provide smart meters. But there is a qualification – the trial was conducted among a group of volunteers, it imposes a cross section of the population in the way that smart meters will be from 2014.

The National Audit Office (NAO has examined the Ofgem investigation and issued a report.

In it, Amyas Morse NAO auditor general concluded that the results "do not refer to a nationally representative sample of households and thus provide limited support for the forecasts. .. [For the Department of Energy and Climate Change] The validity of some results have been limited by design flaws, such as self-selection of participants. "

The installation of 50 million smart meters for gas and electricity – which allow communication between home and the energy supplier – will take place between 2014 and 2019 at an estimated cost of 11.3bn.

The Government expects the scheme will not only recover their costs, but generate an additional 7.3bn energy savings by 2030 as consumers use less energy and suppliers no longer have to read the meters. The net financial result is that the bills of average household energy in the UK will be 22 one year younger in 2020 than it would without the meter.

However, government projections are based in part on the expected energy savings to be put into question, and Mr. Morse said that "the costs could escalate [as] the major projects of this type can be a boost own. "

Advocates of smart meters to point out that there is more to saving the program money to see the "in-house display," and that any reduction of energy, however small, will reduce carbon emissions.

In addition, the meters provide access to the emerging smart grid, through which consumers will eventually be able to instruct your machine to turn in the middle of the night, when electricity is cheaper, or "export" the excess energy generated by wind turbines or solar panels domestic to the national grid.

But if very enthusiastic consumers can reduce energy consumption by only 3 percent, with simple energy saving measures as turning off lights and electrical devices making out, the risk is that the adoption of more complicated smart grid opportunities are low.

Experts agree that the advice is key to the successful implementation of smart meters and related technology.

A sub-section of participants in the trial of Ofgem gave generic advice in writing, as well as the smart meter and at 5 percent, the average energy savings was nearly double the expected with smart meters.

DECC said he still has not completed the level of advice offered to consumers.

An increase in temperature from the stresses of home might be an unintended consequence of release of the Government of smart meters. An intensive 12-month study on the use of smart meters that can heat suggests the battle of the sexes, men tend to show a greater degree of obsession with technological and financial control freakery than women.

"In most cases there appeared to be a single user, dominant on the screen – usually the man," according to an excerpt of the study, by Tom Hargreaves at the University of East Anglia in Environmental Sciences.

One of the participants interviewed said: "It is mostly guys who have shown interest in him … who like flashing lights and knobs and fiddling with things, right? "In some cases, Dr. Hargreaves smart meters are taught people valuable lessons about their intake of energy, which pushes them to work together to reduce their use. However, in many cases, which shows the consumption people power for the lights of increased tensions along generational and gender lines, with parents scold their children.

The tension is revealed in the study was happy to heating, and sometimes a mixture. A man who took a great interest in the use of boiler of his wife, Dr. Hargreaves said: "It's hard with this family because the woman is not interested … I just had a lot of fun to start with almost a. caused him to leave, but, you know – he threatened me … ugly language, basically, "he said before, fortunately, laughing.

Of course, smart meters are often used as a force for good in the battle to reduce energy costs and protecting the environment. But another man, the impact on his wife was more sinister. "I could feel the money was leaking every time the boiler and to be honest, it was hitting on him." I can not get in because I'm losing money, but I have a cold "."

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