Households have been warned that their electricity meters could stop working, meaning hundreds of thousands of Brits could be without hot water by the end of next month.
The signal for Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) technology will be stopped on June 30. At the end of April, almost 366,000 households and businesses still had the RTS meters installed. Despite efforts, the current rate of 1,300 updates per day is not enough to meet the deadline in 33 days. The rate would need to exceed 5,000 a day to reach everyone in time. Campaigners are calling for the deadline to be extended.
Energy suppliers, consumer groups and the regulator Ofgem have been urging households with an RTS system to respond to an offer of free installation of replacement meters before the deadline.
The system will not be turned off across the country at once, but will go into effect in stages and could last until September 30. Energy UK said it was “working closely with the Government and regulator on a carefully managed phase-out process”.
The RTS infrastructure is more than 40 years old and requires replacement. It has reached the end of its operational life and can no longer be adequately maintained.
RTS allows meters to switch between peak and off-peak rates using radio frequencies. Homes with RTS meters are generally off the gas grid and use electricity or storage heaters, and electricity tariffs that vary depending on the time of day.
Users are clustered in rural Scotland, northern England and northern Wales, as well as cities including London, Leicester, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “Ofgem needs to develop a crisis plan, which should include an option for delaying the switch-off process.
“We need to ensure contingency measures are in place for those who do not make the deadline and require energy suppliers to ensure fair metering and billing practices.”
Ofgem said: “The signal serving a specific area should not be switched off until suppliers have demonstrated that they [can] respond quickly to any issues customers experience.”
