Image Licensed under Creative Commons from Identity Chris is’ Photostream

A new utility company in the UK called First:Utility announced the launch of a new smart metering service for customers today.  The service means an end to estimated energy bills, no overpaying, and more importantly will prevent customers from getting unwelcome surprises when bills arrive.

Enjoy complete control of your energy usage enabling you to cut costs and reduce your carbon footprint

The smart meters are connected to First:Utility via mobile phone, and send one reading for gas every day, and 48 readings for the electricity each day (once every half an hour).  The data is used by First:Utility to produce accurate bills without the need of meter readers.  The customer has access to a realtime chart developed in flex (by the looks of it I think), along with a current cost meter for the customer to track their energy use both online and by looking at the current cost meter in the home.  Although with only one gas reading per day, it is unclear whether the gas metering will allow the customer to make any meaningful analysis of their gas usage at different times throughout the day.

You can see a video from BBC2’s Working Lunch programme that shows the new system from First:Utility.  This is not on iPlayer, so I think it should be fine for non UK viewers.

If you do not live in the UK, you probably do not realise that energy bills are a huge bone of contention. The energy companies were privatised starting with British Gas in 1986 and the electricity companies were reorganised and privatised in 1989, thereby creating commercial entities focussed on making profits for shareholders.  Which leads us to the situation the country finds itself in today with the big six energy companies having a strangle hold on the domestic energy market, rocketing energy prices and 4.4 million households in energy poverty.

According to oilbarrel.com, Brent Crude Oil is currently trading at around $45 a barrel, more than $100 below peak pricing in July.  Gas and electricity prices are linked to oil prices and while the wholesale pricing of gas and electricity has tracked the falling oil prices, the energy companies have still not passed any savings on to customers.

The Energy Act 2008, along with the Planning Act and Climate Change Act, form the basis of legislating the delivery and management of the UKs energy supplies.  This Act allows the licenses granted to the energy companies to be altered, requiring the energy companies to install smart meters in various customer sectors, including the domestic sector.  So the energy companies have no choice.  They will need to be using this technology.

This is good news, as customers will be able to get real time data of their energy usage, but more importantly, the technology will eventually allow the consumer to sign up for deals that enable their smart meter to make choices throughout the day regarding the best tariff and supplier, switching for the cheapest option on demand.

While we are not quite there yet with the idea of dynamic supply and pricing, this does pave the way for the type of geekery being developed at Home Camp to actually make a difference by being useful to everyone.