Smart In-Home Displays for utilities will save Britain £6bn in three years, says BEAMA report

New research predicts savings of more than £6 billion (€7.3 billion) by UK households on their gas and electricity bills just by using In-Home Displays. These IHDs are being offered to consumers as part of the UK’s national smart meter roll-out.

According to the report, when IHDs are rolled out to all electricity and gas customers, they are expected to deliver electricity savings amounting to over £2.6 billion (€3.1 billion) over three years and around £3.3 billion (€4.0 billion) of savings are expected for gas over the same period.  The report, Assessing the Use and Value of Energy Monitors in Great Britain, quantifies the financial benefits to consumers of the use of energy monitors, and incorporates results from early smart meter deployments in the UK.

Howard Porter, chief executive officer of BEAMA, the association sponsoring the report, said: “The average results of trials in real homes achieved a 9% reduction in electricity use and, most importantly, these are maintained for at least three years. This puts paid to the sceptics who claim that IHDs will be looked at for a week and then put in a drawer never to be seen again.
“As well as being good news for householders it’s also good news for the environment,” he added. “The carbon savings for electricity alone account for over 8% of the annual C0₂ reductions needed to hit the UK 2018-2022 carbon budget.”

BEAMA is an industry association specialising in product safety, performance, energy efficiency and sustainability. It aims to influence UK and European policy, and represents the whole electrotechnical supply chain with its wide range of products.

The report also concludes that 70-90% of British consumers who have received IHDs to date are satisfied and most customers feel that they have already reduced energy consumption as a result. Evidence suggests that reductions continue and are not simply short-term gains.

Commenting on the findings, Baroness Verma, UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State said: “Consumer engagement is a key aim of the smart meter programme. We welcome this research which clearly shows the benefits to householders. Energy monitors, giving consumers real-time feedback on their energy use, let them make simple changes to their behaviour and big differences to their bills.”

One company that welcomed the results of the report announced by BEAMA is Cambridge-based Green Energy Options (geo) which manufactures IHDs as well as home heating control systems. geo is not surprised by these results, which confirm the company’s first-hand experience of IHDs and engaging with energy consumers for over eight years.

geo’s chief executive officer, Patrick Caiger-Smith, observed that “this report validates the decision to mandate IHDs as part of the smart meter roll-out and shows that there is a convincing financial case for providing consumers with real-time energy information. The research shows that IHDs are a really effective first step in helping consumers understand energy expenditure and they complement perfectly some of the new heating and appliance control apps that are coming onto the market now.”

To download a free copy of the 19-page report go to:
http://www.beama.org.uk/en/news/index.cfm/smd