Smart meter: Citizens Advice urges UK energy supplier action on not working monitor faults, reading problems

Millions of households are missing out on the benefits of their smart meters due to faults and poor service from their suppliers, Citizens Advice has warned.

More than half of British homes now have a smart meter, but suppliers are often “nowhere to be found” when problems arise, according to the consumer charity.

Citizens Advice has called for new rules to ensure energy suppliers quickly identify and fix problems, saying it was particularly worried that people could face huge unexpected bills if their supplier cannot take an automatic reading for an extended period.

Currently, suppliers are allowed to “back bill” customers for an entire year, whether they have a smart meter or not. But Citizens Advice is urging that this period be reduced to six months to prevent hefty catch-up bills.

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A survey for the group found 20% of households with a smart meter – 2.86 million households – still have to regularly submit manual meter readings because their device is not doing this automatically.

Almost a third (31%) experienced issues with their in-home display (IHD) screen that helps households track their energy usage and costs. A quarter of people who asked Citizens Advice for help with smart meter issues had billing problems.

In some cases, shock catch-up bills of £1,000 and upwards were sent to customers after meters went unchecked by suppliers for more than a year.

Government figures show that more than 10% of smart meters were not working properly by the end of last year, but Citizens Advice said it believed this was the tip of the iceberg.

It wants suppliers to be forced to meet new Guaranteed Standards of Performance, which would ensure timely diagnosis of issues and repairs, with affected consumers automatically compensated if these were not met.

It also wants consumers not to be left “waiting in limbo” when suppliers blame issues on the Data Communications Company, which is responsible for the technology’s network, leaving smart users unable to get some issues resolved directly.

Citizens Advice chief executive Dame Clare Moriarty said: “The whole point of smart meters is to empower households to save energy and money, but in reality millions are missing out on those benefits due to problems with technology and poor supplier service.

“Energy companies are very keen for customers to get a smart meter but when issues arise they are often nowhere to be found. That has to change. Suppliers have been far too sluggish in fixing issues with problem meters.

“New obligations and stronger accountability measures are needed to restore public trust in this vital tool to reach net zero.”

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Just this week, campaigners encouraged households to reclaim credit balances from their energy suppliers to "reset" direct debit payments, which remain high despite falling prices.

The Warm This Winter campaign emphasises that customers should not cancel their direct debits, as this could result in higher unit costs for households.

Instead, they recommend resetting energy payments in early summer, which is considered the ideal time for adjustments for the upcoming year.

Statistics indicate that UK energy suppliers are holding over £3 billion in customer credit, with nearly a third (32%) of UK households maintaining credit balances throughout the year.

Warm This Winter estimates that in 2023 alone, firms likely earned at least £159 million in bank interest from these customer credit balances.

Martin Lewis, the founder and chairman of MoneySavingExpert.com, has also recently pointed out that while it is sensible to build up credit in the summer months to pay for higher energy use in the winter, May is the perfect time to stop the “rip off” of firms sitting on billions of pounds of customer credit.