| Summary: | This paper examines possible responses to Article 13 of the European Directive on energy end-use efficiency and energy services. The Directive requires Member States to ensure that energy consumers have frequent and informative billing, along with meters that reflect consumption accurately and provide information on time of use. Stakeholders in the implementation of the Directive include governments, energy suppliers, regulators, consumers and their representatives, environmental NGOs, meter readers and the manufacturers of hardware and software for metering, billing and feedback displays. Utility infrastructures are already changing in some European countries, while plans are being formulated in others. Vendors of the elements in advanced metering infrastructures are busy promoting their wares. Huge investments are at stake when choosing a new socio-technical pathway, and there is much anxiety about becoming locked into a metering/customer relations ‘solution’ that will not deliver adequate benefits to some stakeholders. There have been intense debates on what is technically and financially feasible, and on the potential environmental and social consequences of different forms of metering, tariffing and billing. The paper analyses some of the main issues relating to implementation of Article 13 with reference to experience in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. These issues demonstrate the need for policymakers to define clearly what they want from a metering system in an era of accelerated climate change, in liberalised markets, and with shifts towards more distributed electricity generation.
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