British Gas customers could face 'mandatory' smart meter roll out

British Gas customers could face a "mandatory" roll out of smart meters after Centrica boss Chris O'Shea has urged ministers to make smart meters mandatory in homes. Mr O'Shea spoke out to MPs on the Commons energy select committee on Wednesday.

Speaking on May 8, Mr O'Shea said: “We think that in order to have the proper smart grid that’s required to keep costs low in the future, everybody should have a smart meter. One of the things we should consider as to whether this is a voluntary programme, or whether it should be mandatory.”

He told MPs: “I have customers that write to me saying please stop bothering me. I don’t want a smart meter. We found that 44pc of our customers don’t have them, of whom 600,000, or about 8pc, have said they don’t want one. So for 36pc of customers we are not sure whether they will take one or not.”

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Mr O'Shea said one approach would be to install smart meters "street by street," estimating that a programme could be completed within the next five years. He added: “Gas consumption falls by 3.5pc and electricity consumption falls by 3pc if you have a smart meter.

“It means those customers who don’t have smart meters will, on average, be paying more because they’ll be consuming more energy.” But Rachel Fletcher, a director at the rival energy company Octopus, said: “This should not be done to consumers.

“What we see [at Octopus] is people queueing up asking for a smart meter where we are offering tariffs or tools which allow them to save … hundreds of pounds a year.” His comments come two months after government data showed almost four million smart meters in Great Britain were not working properly, raising concern some people were being overcharged for their gas and electricity bills.