UK firms ‘missing a trick’ with smart meter technology

Businesses in the UK could be “missing a trick” on saving energy and cutting costs as more than three quarters of firms (87%) don’t have a smart meter installed. Opus […]

Businesses in the UK could be “missing a trick” on saving energy and cutting costs as more than three quarters of firms (87%) don’t have a smart meter installed.

Opus Energy, which questioned a panel of 1,000 small and medium sized businesses (SMEs), also revealed 61% of SMEs don’t actively use the information from their energy meter – smart or otherwise – and suggests firms are not making the most of the technology.

Andy Nash, Operations Director at Opus Energy said: “We have recognised that – even with the Government driving forward smart meter installations in order for businesses to make energy savings – it is not yet common practice for businesses to actually use their energy data. This is something we are keen to address as we continue with our smart meter installation programme. Businesses are missing a trick on saving energy and money if they don’t use the data which their smart meter automatically records throughout the day.”

Out of those businesses that did use the information from their energy meter, 26% said they used the data to budget for energy usage and 23% used it to make changes to their firms’ energy use.

The functions of an energy meter that SMEs said they found useful are – providing actual readings rather than estimates (47%), real-time energy usage (39%) and programming the smart meter to turn off appliances during peak price times (31%).

Last week the Government confirmed the UK’s smart meter roll-out – which will see 53 million smart meters installed in 30 million homes – is being put back to 2015.

More than 28,000 (36%) of Opus Energy’s existing SME portfolio are already operating on smart meter technology and the energy firm is now informing these customers about how to benefit from using their data (pictured).

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