British Gas boss says sensible meters may very well be compelled into each residence

The boss of British Gas has said that every home could be forced to have smart meters installed in a bid to meet net zero targets. 

Chris O’Shea’s comments come two months after government data found that almost four million smart meters across Britain are not working properly leading to customers being overcharged for energy bills. 

Speaking at the House of Commons energy select committee, the chief executive of Centrica – which owns British Gas – called for a ‘street by street rather than customer to customer’ installation for the devices over a five year period. 

He 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.’

Mr O’Shea went on to claim that more than a third of British Gas’ seven and a half million customers had ignored offers to install a smart meter. 

The chief executive, who was paid £8 million last year, said: ‘I have customers that write to me saying, “Please stop bothering me. I don’t want a smart meter.”

‘We found that 44 per cent of our customers don’t have them, of whom 600,000, or about 8 per cent, have said they don’t want one. 

‘So for 36 per cent of customers we are not sure whether they will take one or not.’

In words reported by The Times, Mr O’Shea argued that if the government ‘mandated’ a smart meter installation scheme, they could be installed by 2029. 

According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, smart meters make up 61 per cent of all domestic meters in the country. 

While customers are not legally obliged to accept a smart meter if they are offered one, suppliers do often insist on installing smart meters when older meters reach the end of their life. 

They often say that some non-smart meters are no longer being manufactured and are under obligation to install a smart meter if the old one is deemed unsafe. 

One woman was charged £900 without warning by her smart meter in December last year. 

Paula McCracken, from East Yorkshire, said her smart meter had never worked properly and she was overcharged despite taking regular manual readings.

The 48-year-old said EDF Energy took more than £900 from her account twice with no warning, leaving her with a ‘my £500 overdraft fully taken’.  

She said she was refunded on both occasions but not straight away. 

‘If I had no family and friends around me to lend me a bit of money for shopping and things, I would have been completely penniless with two children for a week,’ she said.

At the time, EDF Energy apologised and admitted it ‘fell short’.

A spokesman said: ‘Having taken actions to diagnose and resolve the issue remotely, which were unfortunately unsuccessful, we set up an appointment to reattempt commissioning but could still not receive reads due to further technical issues on site that could not be resolved.’

Sharlene Peppard, 42, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, has 11 children and used her smarter meters to budget.

After 18 months she was told by EDF that the meters were not compatible with each other.

‘I went to the ombudsman who contacted the engineer. I was told the government had set a date for December 2025 to fix the problem and I’d have to wait until then,’ she said.

Mrs Peppard said EDF estimated her bills to be £2 a month.

She added: ‘I’d be in thousands of pounds worth of debt if I believed that. So I’m manually logging in to make the extra £200 payment each month.’ 

Celebrities have also been overcharged by EDF. In December last year, Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry revealed that his smart meter raised his electric bill from £300 to a whopping £39,000 and they tried to take the amount from his account. 

EDF pointed to an ‘erroneous meter reading’ as a possible explanation for unusual changes in amounts charged, and said such increases were verified through a human check.

Six flat owners at a Victorian property in Ealing, West London, suffered a major misbilling when they had an SSE smart meter installed early last year for the lighting of the property’s common areas – stairs and exterior.

Monthly bills used to work out at about £20, but when the smart meter was installed, they began to rise and rise, reaching a staggering £600 a month.

They contacted SSE and were told the reason was – bizarrely – because readings that the supplier received were for a meter 270 miles away in Sunderland.

The occupants, which include actress Jilly Bond, contacted the Energy Ombudsman, which looks into disputes between suppliers and customers. In November last year, it ordered SSE to refund the overpayments.

Smart Energy GB, a non-profit organisation which promotes smart meters, said there were now nearly 35million of the devices in the country. It added that 88.6 per cent of them were operating in smart mode at the end of 2023, a rise of 1.3 percentage points from 87.3 per cent the previous year.

The group also pointed out that the sharp increase in the number of meters not operating in smart mode was due to a data reporting error, which has been rectified in the latest Government figures – released in March. 

A Smart Energy GB spokesman told MailOnline at the time: ‘We know that most people have a very positive experience with their smart meter, but we also understand the frustration felt by some whose meter may be temporarily operating without all of its smart features.

‘If your smart meter is not sending automatic readings to your energy supplier, please be reassured that it will still be recording your energy use correctly.

‘We would recommend that you send your supplier meter readings to make sure you receive accurate, rather than estimated, bills until all of the features of your smart meter have been restored.’  

In November last year, it emerged that six of the country’s largest energy suppliers will pay £10.8million in penalties for failing to meet targets to install smart meters.

Energy regulator Ofgem ordered British Gas, Bulb, OVO, E.On, Scottish Power and SSE to cough up. With British Gas being ordered to pay the most after being handed a bill for £3.4million. 

All six missed their targets for 2022, which was the first time suppliers had to meet a target. The firms should have installed a total of 1.3million more smart meters than they did.

Ofgem said the money will go into a fund that mostly helps Brits in vulnerable situations most at risk from cold homes and high energy bills.