Climate change secretary Ed Miliband will today meet the “big six” energy companies to discuss how a £7bn national smart meter roll out can be achieved between 2010 and 2020. The UK’s biggest energy firms Npower, EDF, British Gas, Scottish & Southern Energy, Scottish Power and E.ON have agreed with the government that each will be responsible for providing smart meters that allow them to more accurately measure a home’s energy use to their customers. The energy companies accept that smart meters will result in significant improvements in reliability and customer service, but the huge IT investment needed to handle what some experts predict will amount to a 4,000 fold increase in data volumes has prompted concerns. Utility firms are not traditionally big users of IT and consequently, one proposal on the table is that a “central communications” supplier will be responsible for collecting and processing information from the meters. Energy regulator Ofgem would run the tender for such a contract, which would operate from 2010 to 2020. According to Sunday Times reports this weekend Vodafone, O2, BT, Logica, Accenture, IBM and Capgemini have all already expressed an interest in bidding for the contract. It is most likely these companies will develop a bidding consortium, in a similar way to other significant government IT contracts such as the National Identity Scheme. The government hopes that by handing much of the required infrastructure work to third party IT specialists, the energy firms will have less reason to object to a full scale smart meter roll out. Independent control of much of the underlying smart grid infrastructure should also allow for customers to switch more easily between energy suppliers, allowing for more effective competition between suppliers. Any roll out would also deliver significant environmental and energy efficiency benefits, according to Centrica. A spokesman for the company, which owns British Gas, said smart meters should “give the UK’s energy customers very significant benefits through cuts in energy usage and much better customer service”. He added that “they will also provide a key element of encouraging more micro-generation in people’s homes”.

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