Sunday 7 September 2008

Government’s smart meter plans running behind schedule

A government plan to install energy-saving smart meters in thousands of homes on a pilot basis, has been delayed and is not expected to be fully operational by the end of this year as planned.

The number of premises using smart meters in the pilot phase has also been substantially scaled back from 25,000 to 6,000, according to the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER),which is heading the project. The pilot scheme for installing the first smart meters was due to commence in May and finish in December, according to the CER’s work plan for 2008.

A spokesman for CER said this weekend that it expected to commence the project later this month. He described the deadline of December 2008 for the completion of the pilot scheme as ‘‘a provisional plan’’.

He said a feasibility study indicated that further preparatory work was required, and representative sample of households would be invited shortly to volunteer for the scheme.

‘‘While you could say we haven’t met our target, we needed to sculpt it out further in order to get a good dispersal of households and businesses and a mix of electricity users,” he said.

The full cost of having smart meters in every home and small business in Ireland will amount to about €1 billion. It will be funded by ESB, which is expected to recoup its costs from electricity users.

The scheme ultimately aims to promote a 3 per cent reduction in energy use by shifting consumption from the peak hours.

Liz McManus, the Labour Party spokeswoman on energy, said that Eamon Ryan, the Green Party Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, had failed in his own targets.

‘‘We’re going to be penalised a fortune in carbon credits because we cannot tackle our CO2 emissions,” McManus said.

‘‘This is a practical measure that would help people scale back on energy use. The minister promised that it would happen at the start of the summer.”

A working group comprising Ryan’s department, the CER,ESB and Sustainable Energy Ireland is steering the smart meter scheme.

Sunday Business Post

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