Smart meters help UK community cut energy consumption 10%

GE’s smart meters have helped a community in Oxfordshire to cut its energy consumption by 10% as part of a Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) project backed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and regulator Ofgem.

SSE gave the smart meters to 800 householders in the village of North Leigh. The smart meters gathered real time electricity and gas usage information and fed it back to both the supplier and the customers, ZigBee® communication protocol, via a website.

The provision of information about energy consumption to the users helped them to make informed choices about their electricity use. SSE is rewarding the village with a £20,000 award in recognition of its achievement.

The trial will help SSE and the UK government gauge the most effective way of helping consumers cut energy use as part of the country’s target of reducing emissions 20% by 2020. One route to meeting that target will be the roll out of smart meters to all households, which the government also hopes to achieve by the same deadline.

“GE is committed to assisting the government meet its objective to have smart meters in every home by 2020,” says general manager of GE Energy in Europe, Keith Redfearn.

“Smart meters are a critical component in educating consumers by promoting energy-saving awareness and this trial deployment shows that smart meters will help the UK achieve its energy efficiency goals,” he adds.

For further information:
www.ge.com
www.ge.com/energy
www.sse.com/

03 June 2011

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