Alan Whitehead told Utility Week that the current 2020 deadline for smart meters is “not feasible”, and carrying on will “almost certainly cause further delays and complications”, after the Data and Communications Company (DCC) delayed going live with the network last month.
Whitehead added that the causes of delay to the DCC should have been anticipated and suggested a networks-led rollout may have been more successful.
“I think we are either in the position where you’ve got to take a fairly deep breath, pause, and only fire the starting gun when you can be sure that things will proceed in reasonably good order thereafter. Or continue to doggedly plug away with a decreasing period between the start date and supposed out date, and an impossible task in-between.
“But if that particular pause period is merely taken up by further fiddling about and mishaps, we will be in an increasingly desperate position. I think it’s necessary for a proper review of the timescales, feasibility and implementation to take place and I also think that there needs to be a greater central pulling together of who is really dedicated to making this rollout happen.”
Whitehead said that although it is “probably not feasible” to start again in terms of responsibility for the rollout, “the fact that energy companies have shown no great appetite to roll out in a hurry is a continually large alarm bell”.
“We’ve got about 1.5 per cent of the estimated total of smart meters installed, which I think tells you a bit about the enthusiasm of the energy companies for actually doing it. It is proving in practice to be a dreadful mess,” he said.
The shadow minister also pointed out that even a modified target of almost completion must be recognised as “not feasible” but that the government is in a state of denial about the fact that the rollout will not be competed properly or on time.
Whitehead called for a new completion date to be configured, probably at least one or two years later than the original 2020 deadline.
“The danger is right now, the date will just be put back and things will continue as before,” he added.