Under European Directives, all member states are required to install 'intelligent metering systems' - smart meters - to at least 80% of domestic electricity consumers by 2020. The UK Government has opted for a more challenging programme, with plans for energy suppliers to install smart electricity and gas meters in all homes and smaller non-domestic premises in Great Britain by 2019. The Department estimates that the smart meters programme will cost some £11.7 billion. This large complex programme requires replacing around 53 million gas and electricity meters, with significant uncertainties over the estimated costs and benefits involved. Installation costs will be borne by consumers through their energy bills, but many of the benefits accrue in the first instance to energy suppliers. No transparent mechanism presently exists for ensuring savings to the supplier are passed on to consumers, and the track record of energy companies to date does not inspire confidence that this will happen. There remain significant uncertainties in a number of key areas in the programme and the Department needs to address these by conducting proper trials to identify and manage the risks associated with an IT project involving such a substantial amount of money which is financed by individuals as consumers. The Department needs to ensure that the vulnerable, those on low incomes and those who use prepayment meters also benefit from smart meters. It would be unacceptable if these consumers bore the costs of smart meters through higher charges without getting a share of the potential benefits.

There are major risks the Department of Energy and Climate Change must address to achieve value for money from its £11.3 billion national programme to install 'smart' electricity and gas meters in all homes and smaller non-domestic premises in Great Britain from 2014 to 2019. Smart meters provide consumers with detailed information on their energy use and can enable energy suppliers to provide a wider range of off-peak tariffs as well as allowing suppliers to collect meter readings remotely. The cost of installing smart meters in every home and smaller non-domestic premise and the associated communications technology will be borne by energy suppliers, passing on the costs and efficiency savings to their customers. Uncertainties remain over the cost of the programme, and the Department still has to develop a specification for the central data and communications system. The Department estimates the economic benefits at £18.6 billion between 2011 and 2030 (achieving a discounted net benefit of £7.3 billion). However, there is uncertainty about the extent to which smart meters will result in changed energy use by consumers over a sustained period. Other risks that the NAO has highlighted are that there is very little contingency time to address the risk that design approvals, procurement and testing take longer than planned; that the system will have to be flexible enough to minimize the risk of future obsolescence; and that the Department has more work to do on the security of the system.

With different intensities, depending on the season, every morning and evening of any weekday there are the same peaks in electricity demand. Peaks can bring about significantly negative environmental and economic impacts. Demand Side Response is a relatively recent solution in Europe which has the potential to reduce peak demand and ease impending capacity shortages. Peak Energy Demand and Demand Side Response presents evidence on a set of Demand Side Response activities, ranging from price-based to incentive-based programmes and policies. Examples are drawn from different programmes for both residential and non-residential sectors of electricity demand, including Time of Use tariffs, Critical Peak Pricing Automated Demand Controllers and Ancillary Services. The book also looks at the actual energy saving impacts of smart meters, the activities which constitute peak demand and the potential opportunities associated with European smart grids and Capacity Markets. This is the first book presenting comprehensive analysis of the impacts, cost benefits and risks associated with Demand Side Response programmes and policies. It should be of interest to students, scholars and policy-makers in the areas of energy, environmental economics and applied economics.

This book on smart grid security is meant for a broad audience from managers to technical experts. It highlights security challenges that are faced in the smart grid as we widely deploy it across the landscape. It starts with a brief overview of the smart grid and then discusses some of the reported attacks on the grid. It covers network threats, cyber physical threats, smart metering threats, as well as privacy issues in the smart grid. Along with the threats the book discusses the means to improve smart grid security and the standards that are emerging in the field. The second part of the book discusses the legal issues in smart grid implementations, particularly from a privacy (EU data protection) point of view.

This book focuses on the economics of smart meters and is one of the first to present comprehensive evidence on the impacts, cost-benefits and risks associated with smart metering. Throughout this volume, Jacopo Torriti integrates his findings from institutional cost-benefit analyses and smart metering trials in a range of European countries with key economic and social concepts and policy insights derived from almost ten years of research in this area. He explores the extent to which the benefits of smart meters outweigh the cost, and poses key questions including: which energy savings can be expected from the roll out of smart meters in households? Is Cost-Benefit Analysis an appropriate economic tool for assessing the impacts of smart metering rollouts? Can smart meters play a significant role in research on people’s activities and the timing of energy demand? Torriti concludes by providing a much-needed survey of recent changes and expected future developments in this growing field. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy policy and demand and smart metering infrastructure.

The aim of this book is to present the most relevant legal constraints resulting from the implementation of the Third Energy Liberalisation Package. The research investigates legal shortfalls of new EU legislation from the day-to-day business perspective. By comparing and contrasting former and present EU rules and their implementation, it shows how the general aim of spurring on the liberalisation of the EU energy market is achievable. The book suggests de lege ferenda stipulations which may be included in the next energy market liberalisation legislation.

This book presents the most interesting talks given at ISSE 2012 - the forum for the inter-disciplinary discussion of how to adequately secure electronic business processes. The topics include: - Information Security Strategy; Enterprise and Cloud Computing Security - Security and Privacy Impact of Green Energy; Human Factors of IT Security - Solutions for Mobile Applications; Identity & Access Management - Trustworthy Infrastructures; Separation & Isolation - EU Digital Agenda; Cyber Security: Hackers & Threats Adequate information security is one of the basic requirements of all electronic business processes. It is crucial for effective solutions that the possibilities offered by security technology can be integrated with the commercial requirements of the applications. The reader may expect state-of-the-art: best papers of the Conference ISSE 2012. Content Information Security Strategy - Enterprise and Cloud Computing Security - Security and Privacy - Impact of Green Energy - Human Factors of IT Security - Solutions for Mobile Applications - Identity & Access Management - Trustworthy Infrastructures - Separation & Isolation - EU Digital Agenda - Cyber Security - Hackers & Threats Target Group Developers of Electronic Business Processes IT Managers IT Security Experts Researchers The Editors Norbert Pohlmann: Professor for Distributed System and Information Security at Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen Helmut Reimer: Senior Consultant, TeleTrusT Wolfgang Schneider: Senior Adviser, Fraunhofer Institute SIT

This thoroughly revised second edition presents a comprehensive overview of the most important contemporary research in EU energy law and policy. The Research Handbook brings together a diverse array of experts, highlighting the multifaceted nature of this continually developing field.

Electricity Decentralization in the European Union: Towards Zero Carbon and Energy Transition, Second Edition examines progress in decentralization across the European Union, with each chapter focusing on developments and innovations in a specific country. Sections provide an overview of the current role and state of smart grids, the conceptualization of energy transition, and specific cases across all EU states. Across the chapters, regulatory frameworks are assessed to identify to what extent it is conducive to decentralization, with specific outcomes of decentralization covered in detail, including deployment of smart grids and meters, demand response, electric vehicles, and storage. The book highlights how specific EU member states are progressing towards deployment of these tools and technologies, along with the specific needs and regulatory barriers in each and recommendations for how regulation can be more encouraging. In addition, electricity interconnections in the EU are considered as a vital step towards decentralization in order to boost energy security and energy efficiency. Finally, the book includes a detailed examination of data protection concerns that arise from the advent of new technologies that collect personal information, such as smart grids, assessing current regulation on data protection and identifying areas for improvement, as well as innovative finance options for sustainable energy. - Analyzes the regulatory environment with regard to decentralization - Explores new tools and technologies to facilitate decentralization, along with current progress in each - Addresses barriers and suggests improvements across tools, technologies and regulations

The Annual Energy Statement 2013 sets out the government's priorities in delivering the UK's energy policies in the near term: helping households and businesses take control of their energy bills and keep their costs down; unlocking investment in the UK's infrastructure that will support economic growth; playing a leading role in efforts to secure international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. It presents plans to make switching simpler and quicker, and a new probe into energy firms' accounts, to make them more transparent on profits and prices, as well as increasing penalties for market manipulation and regularly checking that the market is working properly