Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what are the average cost differences between smart water meter bills and flatline bills.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Customers can be charged for water and sewerage through either the rateable value (unmetered) or via metered volume. Smart meters automatically monitor water usage, enabling water companies and customers to receive more regular data on water consumption. Smart metering offers an opportunity for customers to save money on their bills through identifying water wastage through leaks. Whilst the impacts on bills depend on individual circumstances and customer billing plans, the 2024 Baringa report on smart water metering showed that moving from unmetered charging to a ‘dumb’ meter can reduce water consumption by 12–15% and transitioning directly to smart meters can lead to reductions of up to 17%.

Customers may wish to contact the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) for additional support and advice on getting a smart meter installed and the impacts this could have on their bills. Customers can use the CCW water meter calculator, to assess any potential bill savings they could make if they installed a smart water meter.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether he has made an estimate of the average cost difference between smart meter and flatline bills.

Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Smart meters help households to manage their energy use and reduce bills by enabling suppliers to bill them for their actual, rather than estimated, energy use.

Households with additional low carbon technology can also save on their energy bills by switching to tariffs that are enabled by smart meters with rates designed to incentivise flexible energy use. For example, an EV driver could potentially save £330 annually by smart charging overnight.

Households with heat pumps could also save over £250 annually by shifting to a smart tariff and using their heat pump flexibly to pre-heat their homes during cheaper periods.

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