Criticism over energy monitors plan

Firms will have to give the £60 devices - showing real-time electricity use and cost - to any customers who ask for one from next year as part of a bid to tackle global warming.

But the Energy Retail Association (ERA) said the cost of the move risked derailing ambitious plans to install more sophisticated "smart meters" in every home over the next decade. And it

warned the expense could be reflected in higher bills and refused responsibility for any accidents caused by people installing the monitors to live power cables.

Independent trials of the meters - which allow households to keep track of the cost of their electricity and gas use - suggested they could save £1.9 billion and 5.6 billion tonnes of CO2.

The ERA, which represents all the main energy suppliers, said those advantages could be lost without an "unambiguous commitment" to smart meters by ministers.

In a statement, it said: "We believe that smart meters are essential if consumers are to be offered greater control of their energy consumption. The industry is confident that it can deliver

this new technology - which would involve the biggest home visit programme ever seen as 45 million meters are replaced - within 10 years.

"However, the switch-over cannot be achieved if the Government insists that the energy suppliers provide every single customer on demand with a free clip-on electricity display device from

next year.

"These devices currently retail at £60 each so the costs associated with this decision will make smart metering impossible to implement as well as risking pushing up electricity bills.

"The industry is also concerned about the potential risk associated with millions of customers self-installing these devices to their live electrical cables and will not accept liability for

accidents that may occur."

The ERA "fully supports the Government's objective of putting customers in the driving seat but believes that this can only happen if the latter makes an unambiguous commitment to smart

meters", it concluded. It also pointed out that gas use, which is not monitored by the clip-on monitors, was the major contributor to domestic carbon emissions.

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