Emily Lister, Sales & Marketing Director at Insite Energy.
When we think about heat network energy efficiency, household meters are not generally the first things that comes to mind. However, correctly operating heat meters are a crucial component of a well-functioning heat network system. Not only do they help ensure residents are fairly and transparently billed, in line with regulations, but they can also play a vital role in monitoring overall system performance and pinpointing faults, thereby reducing operating costs.
The term ‘meter health’ refers to a meter’s overall condition, which in turn directly affects its ability to provide accurate and regular automatic meter readings (AMR and connect to metering systems). As well as giving more precise information, healthy meters are less likely to fail and incur additional costs. This ultimately benefits residents by keeping tariffs lower.
Meter health problems
Unhealthy meters, meanwhile, can give inaccurate data, stop communicating with the billing platform or cease functioning altogether, causing billing issues that are difficult to resolve retrospectively. These include over-charging residents on the one hand, leading to disputes and dissatisfaction, or under-recovering costs on the other, causing potentially serious cash-flow problems for property managers that act as energy suppliers and operators.
Faulty meters can also cause operators to miss or misdiagnose equipment failures, leading to operational inefficiencies and higher maintenance costs.
To protect consumers from these types of difficulties, Ofgem is putting in place stringent metering requirements for heat networks when it takes over as regulator for the sector next year. Smart meters will need to be installed in almost all cases and, as well as meeting specific accuracy standards, all meters will need to undergo timely repairs. Non-compliance may lead to fines and other penalties for energy suppliers, not to mention public censure and possible reputational harm.
Savings and satisfaction
For all these reasons, every energy management plan should include clear-cut strategies for ensuring and maintaining meter health. This is not only good practice but leads to very tangible real-world benefits.
In one recent example at a London housing association, implementing a proactive meter maintenance strategy across 4,807 homes saw the number of bills based on accurate readings increase by a remarkable 117% in 12 months. At the same time, costs went down by around £75,000 and resident satisfaction improved.
These impressive results were achieved even with a diverse portfolio of meters of different ages and from different manufacturers, as well as a variety of different types of housing tenures. We were helped by the fact that, as the incumbent metering & billing provider, we had access to customer and system information, allowing us to quickly schedule and manage customer appointments, ensuring a smooth process all round. This successful programme is currently being rolled out across a further 2,857 homes.
How to improve your meter health
So, it’s clear why meter health is so important. But what practical, cost-saving steps should you take to optimise your meters and obtain these kinds of benefits?
- Consider installing remote-monitoring software to identify unhealthy meters and diagnose the cause of the problem. This should also enable you to investigate whether the issue can even be resolved remotely, avoiding a lot of unnecessary house calls, and making for a speedy ROI. Your metering & billing or maintenance provider may be able to help with this.
- Communicate with residents about the process, emphasising the cost savings and other benefits that stand to be realised. This will help your maintenance team to gain access when callouts are needed.
- Wherever possible, batch meters that need maintenance together to make the best use of engineers’ time. This is easier to do when there’s a regular maintenance regime in place.
- Continuously monitor the functioning of your heat network through data from meters and sensors across the system to maintain meter health and promptly address potential issues. A problem on the network may indicate a problem with a meter, and vice versa.
- Prioritise meter repairs for cost reduction based on data-driven insights.
- The best approach is to invest in a holistic meter maintenance contract comprising robust service level agreements (SLAs) and consistent monitoring programmes to spot, prevent and rectify issues proactively – before they become expensive headaches. As well as improving your meter health, this gives a degree of certainty around future costs and service provision, which benefits residents and property managers alike.
Remember, meter maintenance isn’t just about keeping the hardware running; it’s about ensuring residents’ bills reflect their actual usage, reducing operational costs, ensuring regulatory compliance and improving customer satisfaction. Effective planning and a targeted approach are essential to make all that happen.
This article appeared in the September 2024 issue of Energy Manager magazine. Subscribe here.