SEDC - Position Paper: Smart Metering and Information
Smart Meters and their central role in consumer empowerment
Summary
Smart meter systems are communication and control systems which can directly empower consumers to better understand, control, produce and earn from energy. They can empower consumers to become equal partners within the energy value chain.
As an organization dedicated to the development of demand side programmes throughout Europe, the SEDC supports the current effort of the Commission to strengthen and define the capabilities of smart metering in Europe within the Energy Efficiency Directive.
Our vision for the consumer benefits of smart meter systems is based on a three mutually reinforcing dimensions:-
Information Feedback to save energy. Specific information about how consumers use energy and the costs of consumption empowers consumers
to manage it better. In a recent UK poll 53% of respondents said they would save power if they could understand their usage better. *)
- Price Options to save money. Time-of-use electricity pricing options such as off-‐peak discounts and peak time rebates can help consumers save money — although this kind of pricing should always be voluntary.
- Automation to make it easy and convenient to save. Consumers should have access to a vibrant market of smart thermostats, appliances, and office equipment often controlled by BEMS (Building Energy Management System). These enable “set and forget” automatic energy conservation via timeshifting demand and reducing consumption.
In order to empower consumers to better control their consumption and increase efficiency, the SEDC puts forth five policy recommendations:
- Minimum feedback requirements
should be spelled out for informative billing. This should include next-day online
access to smart meter data collected the previous day - presented in a
standard format - on the utility’swebsite, as well as real-time access to
the smart meter data (contingent on a positive cost/benefit).
- Smart meters’
surrounding communication infrastructure should - through the ability to send
usage, prices, and control signals - be capable of supporting the full range
of demand side programmes, direct and multi-channel feedback, dynamic
pricing and home/building automation.
- Third party access to
meter data – with proper customer authorization – should be made possible in
cooperation with utilities. Such access could be available via the utility’s
back office and/or through a secondary communication interface such as through
a gateway, HAN interface, etc.
- Member States should
encourage electricity retailers to use multi-channel, direct feedback to
maximize consumer engagement and to support dynamic pricing tariffs, along with
providing the necessary price transparency.
- When practicable,
consumers should be offered dynamic pricing tariffs – time-of-use,
hourly, critical peak, or peak time rebates – that communicate prevailing
wholesale price signals and offer the opportunity to save money by utilizing
lower-cost, off-peak power, to be used by consumers on an entirely
voluntary basis.