Godfrey Bloom

Wind turbines are not the only stupid idea the coalition and the previous government have had. Amongst their £200 billion of stupid ideas is the idea of spending nearly £12 billion on so-called 'smart meters'. The idea is that the electricity companies will be able to switch off your appliances if the wind isn't blowing sufficiently fast to turn wind turbines to power the country.

It's like someone else having a remote control for your house. Poorer people, who can only afford to pay less for their bills, such as young working families, the elderly and the unwell, will have to endure more interruptions to their supply than their better off neighbours. People who want an uninterrupted power supply will have to pay more.

On top of the inconvenience they will cause, the privilege of having one of these devices installed in our homes is going to cost us each around £300. Yet smart meters may expose us all to attacks from hackers. After all, if our electricity supply can be remotely turned off for 'good' reasons, it can also be turned off for bad reasons. If computer hackers decide to switch off our electricity supply out of sheer malice, Britain may be plunged back into the Dark Ages. Imagine that, in the middle of winter.

There are many good reasons for rejecting these meters, whose only purpose seems to be to allow the green zealots in charge of the UK and EU's energy policies to roll out their preferred technologies, regardless of what the public desires. Luckily, not everyone in government and the media are as stupid and blinkered as DECC ministers, and the UK's green energy plans are at last facing some scrutiny. As the Daily Mail reported this week,

Consumer groups claim the £11billion plan will be a fiasco and have demanded it is halted and the independent National Audit Office has warned it could be an expensive flop. Now MPs on the public accounts committee predict the energy giants will not pass back their savings to customers.

The Public Accounts Committee report mentioned in the Mail article reported this week that,

1. Consumers will have to pay energy suppliers for the costs of installing smart meters through their energy bills, but many of the benefits will pass in the first instance to the energy suppliers. 2. The benefits of smart meters can only be fully realised if there is widespread take-up and consumers use them to reduce their energy bills, yet the role of suppliers in helping to achieve this remains undefined. 3. The benefits from smart meters may not reach vulnerable consumers, those on low incomes and those who use prepayment meters. 4. Trials so far have been inconclusive about consumers' willingness to cooperate with the installation process and to use smart meters to reduce their energy consumption. 5. The data communications service required to link smart meters to suppliers is a complex IT project that may cost as much as £3 billion. 6. The Department and energy suppliers face significant challenges to install smart meters in every home in the country.

This is all government-speak for 'they don't bloody work'.

Smart meters are being pushed by stupid ministers. (Either that, or they are simply bad). That's the problem with technology -- it doesn't matter how clever it is, in the hands of idiots it can be worse than the problem it intended to solve. Some technologies are fantastic. But 'smart meters' only allow politicians -- mad or bad -- to have greater control over our lives. There's nothing 'smart' about that.