Increasing the accessibility of smart meters in bid to help reduce fuel poverty

The importance of increased accessibility of smart meters for all has received support from local MP Michelle Donelan. Smart meters are a crucial means of putting the consumer back in control, helping families to budget and closely monitor their usage to avoid fuel poverty.

The local MP says she has many rural villages across her constituency of Chippenham and stressed that everyone should be able to benefit from smart meters, including the most remote, particularly as such homes often double up as offices for the self-employed. She has called on the Government to continue to support the technical development of smart meters to facilitate both greater accessibility for hard-to-reach premises and alternative arrangements for providing a home area network where the standard equipment does not work.

Michelle Donelan also highlighted the environmental benefits that smart meters provide, making the point that the use of them “will, by reducing energy consumption, help not just consumers but the environment too.” By 2020, it is estimated that 26 million households will be able to work out where they can save energy, cut their bills and therefore do their bit for the environment.

Michelle Donelan MP stated, “Smart meters means the end of estimated bills and I am pleased that everyone in Britain will be offered one by their supplier as part of a national upgrade to our energy system.

“The ability to see what you’re spending on your energy in near real time means you can work out which appliances are guzzling the most energy and show the real difference it can make if you remember to turn the lights off.

“Work needs to continue be done to increase the accessibility of them, particularly in rural areas. Smart meters put the consumer back in control and should be welcomed by all as a means of budgeting and supporting families to reduce the amount of money spent on gas and electricity.”