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Dual Fuel Smart Metering for the Fuel Poor A new service designed by the Energy Services Company, Helpco, offers domestic electricity and gas consumers, who would normally only be offered pay as you go tariffs, access to credit tariffs, hence, lower bills. In addition, Helpco provide energy efficiency advice and practical assistance to these consumers. Helpco consulted PRI to design a dual fuel metering system which delivers functionality for energy efficiency as well as managing debt risk. The system caters for the users' need for real-time energy efficiency information in the home, and the suppliers need to bill accurately and manage debt risk. This type of real-time in-home display has been shown to deliver initial savings of circa 15% per household and a sustainable 5% per annum over the longer term. The concept behind WarmPlan is enabling consumers to budget for energy use and expenditure on a monthly basis through targets based on the size, occupancy and type of property. Consumers who sign up to WarmPlan agree to a new supply contract and have new metering fitted, replacing the pre-payment meters. The new metering system comprises a PRI Liberty electricity meter, a Sonix E6V Gas meter and an IQ+ customer display unit fitted with a GSM communications. The IQ+ displays to the consumer their performance over time with respect to energy consumption and expenditure allowing them to ensure they stay on target. As with all of PRI's domestic metering solutions, data is displayed in financial terms (money) and provides simple yet effective comparators to make it more relevant to the consumer, empowering them to manage their energy/spend. Half hourly data is downloaded from the meters over the GSM link to monitor each consumer's performance and to ensure they are not spending too much (or too little in the case of heating during the winter months). Optionally, the load profiles can be displayed on the Internet for consumers to view. The system also supports a set of messages that can be triggered from the central server based on the actual versus target performance. These messages can prompt the user into action with respect to their consumption or payment. Debt risk to Helpco and its energy supplier is managed by the central server authorising a given amount of credit for gas and electricity to each consumer at the beginning of every month based on the pre-defined targets. This credit amount is then decremented by the individual gas and electricity meters over the course of the month. If the consumer exceeds their target and ignores the system messages to reduce expenditure, the individual meters will switch to "Pay as you go mode". The consumer can then make additional payments as desired. Thanks to the presence of remote communications these processes are run without the need for costly site visits. A demonstration was given to Elliot Morley, then the Government Minister for Climate Change and Environment to show the benefits that smart metering could deliver to the domestic consumer. The Minister was very impressed with both the data available on the IQ+ display and the fact that he would be able to see his consumption patterns on the Internet. He said "I would like to have one of these in my home so that I could prove that my heating controls are working properly". |
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