GLASGOW-BASED Smart Metering Systems has hailed underlying growth while signalling a potential stretch to the Government’s domestic smart meter change-over timetable in a stock exchange statement.
SMS reported a rise in revenue of 24 per cent to £98.5 million, against £79.6m, as it announced its final results for the 12 months to December 31, 2018, which show “continued underlying business growth”.
Profit before tax increased by 13% to £25.1m set against £22.2m the previous year.
The firm, which has almost 1,000 staff and bases in Cambridge and Bolton in England and Cardiff in Wales, installs, owns, operates and maintains gas and electricity meters on behalf of major energy companies.
Total gas and electricity metering and data assets increased by 1.1m to 3.13m under management and the total gas meter portfolio, including third-party management assets, increased by 65% to 2.1m, with industrial and commercial meters increasing by 6% to 173,000.
READ MORE: Smart Metering Systems wins orders for up to 200,000 smart meters for small businesses from SSE
Its gas data portfolio increased by 4% to 131,000. Total electricity meter portfolio increased by 78% to 552,000. Electricity data portfolio increased by 7% to 345,000.
The SMS statement raised more questions over the Government’s smart meter roll-out programme, under which suppliers are required to take all reasonable steps to install smart meters to all homes and small businesses by the end of 2020.
The change-over has not gone entirely smoothly for some suppliers, and SSE was this week fined £700,000 by regulator Ofgem for missing an initial target for homes.
Recent figures show smart meter installation dropped by 16% year-on-year in the final three months of 2018 and domestic smart meter installation fell 2% in the final quarter compared to the previous three months and Ofgem said it monitoring supplier approaches to the roll-out
READ MORE: SSE fined £700,000 over smart meter failure
SMS said that it anticipates “the domestic smart meter exchange to extend to the end of 2022, and potentially into 2023”.
The firm said “there are 53 million gas and electricity meters in the UK and, as of the end of December 2018, there were 14.9 million smart and advanced meters installed in homes and businesses across the country”.
Alan Foy, SMS chief executive, said “2018 has been a year of continued investment and growth, and I am especially pleased with the way in which we have brought our end to end solutions to the UK’s energy suppliers shown by the significant contract wins announced in the last six months”.
“Building long term partnerships with our customers is key to our success.
“We enter 2019 with a strong order book and are well positioned to continue making progress in our core markets.”
New deals include exclusive arrangements with First Utility (Shell Energy) and Good Energy, and frameworks with Co-op Energy, Bristol Energy and Octopus Energy. An SSE Energy Supply deal was also signed.
Mr Foy added: “We are optimistic about the future energy market opportunities which our business model presents and we are confident that we can effectively leverage our existing capabilities in its delivery."
READ MORE: Smart Metering Systems buys three firms in England as its looks to maintain strong growth
He said: “With the increasing demand for our utility connections and energy management services, we are investing to diversify and innovate in energy, installation and data services which will support the transition and decarbonisation of the UK energy system.
“We are proud to have been recognised by the Office of Low Emission Vehicles” adding “as an accredited installer, funder and expert energy consultant we are not only able to design and deliver the installation, but also to maximise value through provision of integrated energy strategies.”
Mr Foy added: “As a major energy services and smart metering company, which places data and sustainability at the core of our ethos and business model, we are excited to be at the heart of the revolution in the United Kingdom with a mission to deliver the future of smart energy.”
It reported a total dividend of 5.98p, an increase of 15%. Shares rose 0.44% to 572.5p.
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 here