Ex-minister blasts smart energy meters and admits he’s even ‘removed his own’
THE ex-minister who launched the smart meter rollout has admitted he removed his own as he “barely looked at it”.
Mike O’Brien announced the £11billion revolution that every home will have a smart meter by 2020 more than nine years ago while Energy Minister in Gordon Brown’s Labour Government.
But he has blamed fundamental flaws in the project overseen by then-Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, as it is set to miss its deadline.
The government believed this would mean households used less as a result. But Mr O’Brien — MP for North Warwickshire until 2010 — told the : “I had an early version. After a while I barely looked at it, didn’t use it. We got rid of it.”
Other former ministers have said the programme was rushed through by politicians and government officials who wanted to meet climate change targets.
The programme to install 53million devices by 2020 is behind schedule, with one in ten meters failing to work.
Ministers have faced calls to pause the roll-out till up-to-date versions are ready later this year. The second generation meters, known as Smets2, were meant to be ready by 2014 but by January this year only 80 were installed in homes.
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A Department of Energy spokesman said: “More than 11million smart and advanced meters are already benefiting households and small businesses.”
He added domestic savings are expected to be £1.2billion a year by 2030.
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