The Great Britain (GB) smart meter rollout is in full swing.  At the time of writing, 2 million second-generation (SMETS2) smart meters will have recently been installed within the Data Communications Company (DCC) network.  This is in addition to approximately 13 million first-generation (SMETS1) smart meters already deployed to GB homes and businesses, meaning the industry is nearly one third of the way towards reaching its 53-million target.

Of course, there is still a long way to go until that magic number is achieved. As a result, DCC users will find themselves collecting increasingly-larger amounts of smart meter data as the rollout progresses, due to their ever-increasing smart meter portfolios.

Smart meter data provides tremendous insight into consumer behaviour, but may not be fully leveraged by DCC users if their priorities focus purely on the installation of smart meters into its customers’ homes and businesses.

Smart meter data drives consumer engagement

There are wide-ranging benefits that smart meter data can provide to energy suppliers, network operators and other users, including:

  • Half-hourly consumer energy usage provides more-accurate billing, enables demand-side response and drives consumer engagement through the implementation of ‘happy hours’ and provision of usage/money spent via a supplier-provided app.
  • Presence of electric vehicle (EV) charging points and photovoltaics (PV) enabling an energy supplier to offer its customers with flexible time-of-use (TOU) tariffs tailored to their behaviour.
  • Combination of consumption and energy tariff data drives consumer switching via price-comparison websites and auto-switchers.
  • Alerts and alarms provide notification of potential security breaches and meter tampering, enabling the responsible energy supplier or network operator to quickly intervene, contact the consumer or conduct an on-site visit.
  • Visibility of prepayment customer credit balances enables the energy supplier to notify a consumer if their credit is low or intervene remotely to prevent supply disconnection.

Smart meter data drives energy efficiency

The high-quality energy usage data captured by smart meters enables consumers to more effectively manage their energy usage, driving energy efficiency and reducing household bills.  The Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL), via the DCC in the role of other user, will be collecting historic and on-going energy usage data from 10,000 consenting GB households.  The data collected from smart meters by SERL will be utilised for the purposes of scientific research, helping us gain a better understanding of our country’s energy usage and making us more energy efficient.

Finding value amongst the noise

If you are an energy supplier or network operator, you will know that smart metering devices can be very chatty and on occasion be responsible for ‘alert storms’.  Depending on your business needs, you may not want to act on every single alert received from an alert-storming device or elect to ignore them entirely. 

You may also have a desire to ignore certain events if they were to occur at specific times.  Tamper alerts received during the installation process is just one example.

However, there may be specific events that are integral to your business.  For each event of value received, you will require a particular business process to be instigated off the back of it.  Depending on the type of event, this could be notifying a customer, raising an incident or sending to your CRM system.

ER360 Smart enables you to harness the power of smart meter data

ER360 Smart provides a turnkey event management solution that combines robotic process automation, machine learning, APIs and data analytics.  The solution enables you to effectively manage your smart meter alert and events, delivering operational benefits and improving the customer experience

Additionally, CGI is an associated organisation of SERL and an integral part of its infrastructure, providing access to the DCC and smart meters via our Smart Metering Access Service (SMAS) for other users.

For more information about our ER360 Smart capabilities, download the brochure now.