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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel