Smart Energy GB has called for digitalisation of the energy market to be “intensely scrutinised” by government to ensure it goes in the right direction. Smart Energy GB also called for issues around serving vulnerable customers are addressed and solved quickly. The chief executive of Smart Energy GB, which is behind the national campaign for the smart meter rollout, was speaking at a meeting of the Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) on the energy revolution. Also on the panel was the Centre for Sustainable Energy chief executive Simon Roberts, who expressed his concerns about an “issue of understanding” in the energy sector that could result in unintended consequences from the revolution. He added: “There are issues around the absolute need to decrease demand, the absolute need to increase the ability to map demand and deal with variable sources but also the opportunity to use data and techniques to support more vulnerable households better. Those are the things we think we can achieve through this disruption and revolution but they are not inevitable. “I think there is an assumption that is built into a lot of the discourse that progress is always positive and markets will do right by consumers. We are not in a world where government yet understand how those rules affect the types of disruption that comes forward. Unless we get underneath the skin of that we won’t get the benefits and may end up with something that wasn’t quite intended.”
Utility Week 12th Oct 2016 read more »