Engineering solutions company Actavo, which Scottish Power appointed in October, told Utility Week that the response to its first wave of maildrops has taken the company “a little bit by surprise”.
Actavo’s chief executive, network and in-home division, TJ Malone said the number of inbound calls to its Glasgow control centre from the postcode targeted maildrops is “much higher than was initially mapped out”.
Actavo is responsible for not only installing the smart meters themselves, but also generating the installation leads and managing the entire process.
Malone told Utility Week: “We are finding that there is genuine interest from people to be able to control and have greater understanding of their energy use.
“It’s great, what it really means is we are getting more jobs in each area, we are getting a higher density of installation per area than we initially anticipated.”
Actavo has initially planned to train 200 installers to install 780,000 meters through its partnership with three colleges in Scotland.
Malone said the number of engineers coming off the courses will be tailored to match demand from customers, as will the rate of its future maildrops.
Earlier this month the communications network underpinning the rollout finally went live following several delays, allowing the main rollout to begin.