Smart gas meters could save Ireland's residents millions

Installing smart gas meters across Ireland would save residents and the country €59 million ($81 million) over the next 20 years, according to a study by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER).

Those savings would come from lower bills for customers, as well as from efficiency and environmental benefits. A universal rollout of smart gas meters, for example, would reduce Ireland’s carbon dioxide emissions by up to 1,167,000 over a 20-year period, the study found.

Those results, based on a trial of 2,000 smart gas meters that ended this past May, echo the findings from a previous CER study of smart electricity meters.

In fact, the positive findings from the gas meter trial are based on the assumption that smart electricity meters would also be deployed nationwide. The gas meters would use the same communications infrastructure as the electricity meters.

“(T)he benefits of rolling-out both together is key to the positive results for gas,” according to the CER.

Reaping the full benefits of smart metering would also require in-home displays, smart bills and gas/electricity prices that vary according to demand.

The gas trial found that smart metering led to an average demand reduction of 2.9 percent. The earlier trial found that smart electricity meters would cut overall demand by 2.5 percent, with a peak-time reduction of 8.8 percent.

According to the CER, the gas meter trials were “one of the largest and most robust carried out internationally.”