EDRP & Smart Metering Update 4 th February 2010 Richard Westoby, Andrew Monks and Ian Lansley

1. EDRP & Smart Metering Update4th February 2010Richard Westoby, Andrew Monks and Ian Lansley

2. Agenda • EDRP Key Learnings • Key Learnings and Insights • Consumer Needs • Technical and Practical issues • Deployment and Design issues • Q&A

3. ‘Consumer Need’ Learnings • Customers want choice on how they receive information and customers more interested in saving money than saving energy • Displays, paper or web probably all required to meet different customer needs • Customer messages and propositions need to be simple to understand • Interventions received via multiple media seen as wasteful and confusing

4. ‘Consumer Need’ Learnings • Displays • Visual ‘traffic’ lights generally well received • Pricing on display needs remote updating and consumer prefers pricing to be fully inclusive with explanation • Electricity and gas units not always understood • Prepayment meters need extra information on displays • Prepayment buttons on meter need to be well labelled and friendly • Low signal power creates customer concerns if ‘no comms’ message • Some customers refused displays as didn’t want one or too technical • Paper Information with Bill or in Post • Shifting consumption from peak to off-peak; positive response from consumers but some difficulty understanding the principle • Graphs and benchmarking need simple explanations • Some customers regard paper as wasteful • Web • Only 40% customers provided email addresses for this intervention • Website needs simple access with easy user name / password rules • Password lockouts caused customer concern • Some customers not interested in web access or turned off by process to reach the graphical screens

5. Deployment Learnings • Difficult locations need technical solutions: • Basements, block of flats and remote geographical locations (eg; islands, highlands) not addressed and will require comms solutions to be developed • Meter not readily accessible eg; boxed in meters • Community approach has positive impact on reducing energy consumption; however this approach would need substantial adaptation for a national roll out • In urban and suburban areas it is difficult to identify what is a community • New smart meter / display solutions take 12-18 mths to develop, test and pilot • Skilled trained installer workforce necessary; training and availability will be an issue

6. Summary • Need for consumer choice of media and simple messages • A key driver is consumer cost saving leading to energy saving • Geographic approach aids communication and local support for rollout • Manufacturers and system integrators must improve their quality control and testing to reduce faults and data issues • Complexity must not be underestimated for national rollout due to the numbers of parties and the number of process elements involved • Interoperability required between meter types (eg; gas and electric) and displays across HAN and WAN • Need to address difficult sites / meter locations • Skilled trained installer workforce necessary; training and availability will be an issue

7. Energy made better