Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | AUGUST 2022 | 37 Smart meter progress enriching data and insights While some sneered at this approach, my moral compass – and a bloody good team – guided my mission to become the best energy partner to our customers; not a faceless supplier that customers would happily switch away from. And in a competitive environment you're really trying to reduce a consumer's energy bill – whether this is through price or lower consumption. In 2005, Utilita was installing smart meters in customers' homes – the • rst step to helping people see, in real time, what energy they were using. Today, Utilita has 820,000 customers, of which more than 90% are smart-enabled. Every smart meter installed enriches Utilita's data and insights into the way households use – and waste – energy, strengthening our ability to innovate to enable and encourage energy savings. Access to 30-minute data was a real turning point, which enabled Utilita to launch Smart Score, a feature on the My Utilita app that enables households to cut their energy wastage by up to 20% through bespoke advice. Despite being given the innovative blueprint – check out our white paper – the government has ignored an opportunity to encourage – ideally mandate – all suppliers to give customers the same level of data, which would give hard-pressed households the potential to make substantial savings on their all-time high energy bills. Not only that, but it would help the UK to reach its net-zero target by as much as two years earlier. It begs the question: does the government only consider innovations that generate revenue for the Treasury? Opportunity to encourage energy e ciency It doesn't take a genius to work out that by giving consumers the ability to cut their energy bills by up to 20% during the cost-of-living crisis, households would be less reliant on the government's • nancial support. Imagine if the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that as well as o" ering • nancial support, the government would mandate all energy suppliers to help their customers reduce their energy bills – it would have been incredibly well received. As outlined in my foreword of Utilita's inaugural Household Energy Behaviour Index, the unprecedented rise in energy prices has created the best-ever opportunity for this government and all energy suppliers to promote and encourage energy e– cient behaviour, but they continue to ignore it. Our report con• rms that this "spend to save" mantra being pedalled by the government is disengaging the majority of households who don't have the money to invest in high price tag green tech such as heat pumps, solar and electric vehicles. There's a hierarchy of energy sustainability and that must always start with cutting waste. A line I have used a million times is: 'The cheapest and greenest energy is the energy we don't use.' Bill Bullen, founder and chief executive, Utilita Energy "Access to 30-minute data was a real turning point, which enabled Utilita to launch Smart Score, a feature on the My Utilita app that enables households to cut their energy wastage by up to 20%."

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