SCOTTISHPOWER boss Keith Anderson cites one of the reasons for the company’s fall in profit in the first quarter of this year compared with last year, as being the cost of the roll-out of smart meters (“Scottish Power hits out over price cap”, The Herald, April 27). Our recent experience suggests that the current practice of energy suppliers in respect of smart meters is significantly wasteful and certainly not environmentally “smart”.

We had a smart meter installed in the past year by our then energy supplier. It proved helpful in monitoring energy consumption and efficient in providing meter readings direct to the supplier. We switched supplier in February and now find that our smart meter no longer functions as intended. When we approached our new supplier to check if the smart meter could be utilised by them, we were told it could not be as each energy company has its own smart meter. The solution suggested by the new supplier is to take out the existing smart meter and replace it with one provided by our new supplier (at their cost).

According to smartenergyGB, energy suppliers are rolling out 53 million smart meters to their customers across the UK. Surely energy companies should give priority to ensuring smart meters are compatible to avoid this highly wasteful practice especially given the promotion of energy switching by consumer groups and by the UK Government.

There is a contradiction in promoting smart meters as “making us a greener, more energy efficient nation” (smartenergyGB) and in energy suppliers bemoaning a fall in profits as long as this environmentally unfriendly practice continues.

Ian Brodie,

21 Thriplee Road, Bridge of Weir.

JAMIE Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland, joins a long list of correspondents to the Herald who fail to mention that currently 40 per cent of Scottish households are living in fuel poverty (“The new inequality commission must be both bold and independent”, Agenda, The Herald, April 27). What is the point of a new poverty commission when, for the past decade, Holyrood has pledged to eliminate fuel poverty in Scotland by the end of 2016 yet that promise remains a policy failure ?

If our MSPs continue to talk the talk but fail to walk the walk on this policy then the cost of a new poverty commission would be better spent on reducing the energy bills of the 40 per cent of Scots in fuel poverty than wasted on a commission that cannot provide financial assistance to this sector of the population.

Ian Moir,

79 Queen Street, Castle Douglas.