Metering and billing for communal heating
Ener-G Switch2 has published guidance on how to charge for communal heating.This free e-guide includes advice on new regulations and recommendations for metering and billing. The guide covers the steps that suppliers of community and district heating, such as developers and landlords, should take to develop compliant metering systems that adhere to best practice and which can help to reduce heating and hot-water bills by as much as 50%.
The 2014 Heat Network Regulations include the strong recommendation that by December 2016 consumers should know how much heat they are using, which would require installing meters for each final customer.
Kirsty Lambert, director of community-heating metering and billing specialist with the company, comments, ‘Most district-heating schemes do not have heat meters and bill on a flat-rate charge each month, no matter how much heat residents use. This is both unfair and wasteful because there is no incentive to reduce consumption.
‘New-generation pay-as-you-go meters are helping residents to cut heat and hot-water bills by as much as 50%. Sheffield City Council has used this technology to cut tenant’s heating bills by an average of £238 over the first 12 months of operation.
‘There are many practical and legislative arguments for installing meters and considering modern pay-as-you-go technologies for district-heating schemes.
