Octopus Energy boss criticises smart meters as households struggle with faulty devices

The boss of the UK’s second largest energy company has criticised in-home displays for smart meters, as households face problems with faulty devices.

Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy, said in-home display devices are ‘so bad’ in a response to a customer on social media network X.

‘We’ve had a million such sessions looking at those darned things. They’re so bad,’ he said in response to a customer whose device was failing to show their electricity usage.

Not so smart meter: Octopus boss Greg Jackson highlights issues with some IHDs

Smart meters have become ubiquitous as energy companies say they help households with budgeting as they alert customers to how much gas and electricity they use from day to day.

They can send readings via a remote connection to energy suppliers.

The In-Home Display (IHD) is the small screen that comes with your smart meter and gives you information about your energy meter itself.

While energy companies might herald smart meters as a great development, the technology is not foolproof.

This is Money has heard from plenty of readers who have had issues with their IHDs or smart meters, either displaying the wrong usage or not at all.

A Money Mail investigation also found that some households are being billed for energy used by properties hundreds of miles away, resulting in huge bills.

Six flat owners at a property in Ealing, West London, had an SSE smart meter installed early last year for common areas.

Monthly bills used to be about £20, but when the smart meter was installed, they reached £600 a month.

After contacting SSE they discovered their supplier had been receiving readers from a meter 270 miles away.

One of the issues with smart meters is that the computer systems used to support them are only as good as the quality of the data inputted. 

The Government is aiming to install smart meters in most homes, but figures from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero show 2.7million of around 33million meters are not in smart mode.

This often leads to billing issues, with some households being sent wrong bills worth thousands of pounds.

In a Tweet/X Jackson said: ‘Smart meters can be really cheeky – they send about 200 different messages and all need to be in order to get the data.’

And it seems Octopus customers are also struggling with meters. Jackson criticised the technology, telling a customer ‘the spec is a decade out of date but we have no choice.’

Octopus Energy has become the second largest energy company in Britain, with a mission to disrupt a market that has long been dominated by legacy players.

Customers have praised its approach to customer service, with Jackson often taking to Twitter, formerly X, to help directly.

It has developed its own consumer access device (CAD) called the Octopus Home Mini, which connects to a customer’s smart meter and takes data from it every 5 to 15 seconds.

This is uploaded and made available to customers in their Octopus app or online account.

A spokesperson for Octopus Energy said: ‘We’re a massive fan of smart meters – they’re super important for the energy transition and unlock the power of smart tariffs.’

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk