Brits are being warned that they could be at risk of a faulty smart meter, which could end up costing them more money.
It is understood that roughly 36 million households in the UK rely on a smart meter to calculate how much. Despite this, official figures state that around 10 per cent of smart meters are faulty and do not work how they should.
Smart meters are the latest generation of energy meters which can automatically track how much gas and electricity you use at regular intervals. It then sends the data to your energy supplier who can provide a more accurate bill – genereally, bills are also cheaper with a smart meter installed.
Industry regulator Ofgem revealed that a staggering amount of smart meters are unable to send automatic readings to providers which means their energy usage is not being tracked effectively.
According to the figures, among the suppliers with the highest faulty meters, British Gas has the highest amount at 16.3%, closely followed by Scottish Power at 14.5%, and EDF at 12.1.%. Meanwhile, E, Ovo, and Utilita have the lowest amount of faulty meters at 2.6%, 5.6%, and 5.8% respectively.
Based on these figures, around 2.6 million households are operating faulty smart meters.
How to tell if your smart meter isn’t working properly
The first tell-tale sign that your smart meter isn’t working properly is if it fails to display anything on its screen. Furthermore, you may find that your bills are far higher than usual or than what you expected they would be based on your usage.
Accurate bills should have a ‘smart’ mark on them to indicate that they’re based off your smart meters data. In some cases they may instead be marked with an ‘e’ which means you are being billed based on an estimate from the provider.
If you suspect your smart meter isn’t working properly, you should contact your energy provider as soon as possible so they can send out an engineer to test it and fix it if there are any problems. Generally, the fix itself should be free, however, if your smart meter isn’t faulty, you could still be charged.