UK energy provider RWE npower is piloting an SMS smart metering service in a bid to improve services to its pre-pay customers. Rather than top up energy credit at a shop or other outlet and then physically plug their key or card into their meter, customers in the RWE npower trial are using their cell phones for the whole procedure. Following the same model as pay-as-you-go cell phones, customers recharge their account on their phone or over the internet, which prompts an SMS message to be automatically sent to update the meter. One in seven people are pre-pay energy customers in the UK, but they are a costly and complex group to manage, partly because they take up far more call center time. Pre-pay customers generate quite a lot of calls and typically they may raise an issue that needs someone to be called out in a van or another call to be raised, said Rich Hampshire, principal consultant for energy and utilities at LogicaCMG. With the new SMS system implemented by LogicaCMG and Onstream, People sat in the call center can call up a meter and put emergency credit onto it remotely, said Hampshire. SMS messaging is just one of range of smart metering technologies designed to track how much energy people use, giving customers greater visibility and control over their energy consumption. The UK government outlined its commitment to smart metering in its energy white paper earlier this year, though it didn’t go into specifics about when the technology should be introduced. Smart metering is set for rapid expansion, according to a recent Datamonitor report. In five years, it expects 41% of European households and 89% of US homes will be kitted out with energy meters, compared with only 6% penetration today. Like RWE npower, most UK customers are currently experimenting with the technology, and there is still a lot of work needed on standardization of communications protocols to promote more widespread adoption. One of the key aims of smart metering is to prompt customers to think more carefully about their energy consumption and make changes in their behavior to lower their bills. This cost incentive is even stronger for businesses, said Hampshire, as it reduces the burden of making monthly or quarterly readings across multiple sites and helps them identify energy hot spots and make changes to reduce usage in those sites.

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