In this code of practice, the word ‘customer’ refers to existing and potential customers.

General

Smart Meters are the next generation of electricity meters.  Using digital technology, smart meters will give accurate information on energy usage throughout the day.  In 2019, ESB Networks commenced the roll out of the upgrade program in Ireland where over 2m smart meters will be installed a phased basis by 2024.

Smart Services will send accurate half hourly consumption interval data and readings automatically from your Smart Meter meaning you will no longer have to have your meter read or worry about estimated bills.[1]  Smart Services will enable suppliers to provide Time of Use tariffs, enabling and motivating consumers to shift some of their consumption to off peak times of the day when electricity is cheaper.  You will be billed for the electricity you actually consume for the time you actually consumed it.

We will offer you the on going choice of whether you wish the data from the smart meters used for billing to be received daily or not.  If not, your data will be collected every two months.  The data collected every two months will be more limited than the data collected every day. We encourage you to receive the data from your smart meter every day as it will greatly enhance the choice of tariffs available to you and give you better insights and control of the electricity you consume.

Transition

Before you transition to Time of Use, we will provide you with a time of use primer.  This primer will provide you with simple and clear explanation of time of use, the benefits of time of use and how time of use tariffs work.

Time of Use Primer & Reminder

Within 3 months after your smart meter is installed by ESB Networks, or within 6 months of the switch on of smart services (currently estimated to be January 2021), if you are lucky enough to already have a smart meter installed, we will send you a time of use Primer by email, post or communication channel of your choice.  This primer will explain in simple, jargon free language, how smart meters and time of use tariffs work, particularly focusing on the benefits of both.  If you have a smart meter, but have not switched to time of use tariffs 12 months after receiving our time of use primer, we will contact you by an appropriate means to remind you of the benefits of time of use.  These reminders will be issued on an annual basis until such time as you switch to a time of use tariff.

If you do not avail of the Time of Use Primer to move to time of use tariffs, we will make the best use of available information on your consumption patterns, to make our communications with you on the time of use primer as relevant and tailored as possible.

Time of Use Tariff

As explained above, Time of Use tariffs mean suppliers will charge for actual consumption at the time you actually consume it.  Time of Use tariffs, enable consumers to shift their consumption to off peak times of the day when electricity is cheaper. We will provide you with no more than four Time of Use tariffs including a “Standard Smart Tariff”.  A Standard Smart tariff is a tariff with three time bands

Day:     08:00 to 23:00 (excluding Peak)

Night:  23:00 to 08:00

Peak:   17:00 to 19:00

Unit rates in these time periods will have meaningful price differences, reflecting prices borne by Pinergy as your supplier.  We anticipate that this information will assist you in obtaining meaningful savings on your bill.  Other tariffs available will potentially provide unit rates more appropriate to your lifestyle, e.g. a specific Electric Vehicle charging tariff and family focused tariffs among others

Provision of Information to Customers

We will provide you with access to your half hourly historical consumption for at least 24 months or from the start of your supply contract, whichever is shorter.  The data will be up to date, secure and available on request via our SmartApp, our website or by contacting customer service.  The data will be in a standard harmonized format, meaning you can analyse the data yourself or share the data with another supplier or third party offering profile data analytics services.  In addition to the data above, the Pinergy Smart App will analyse your consumption by hour, day, week and month.  It will compare your current consumption to your typical consumption and will also compare your consumption to your peers.  Finally, similar analyses and comparisons will be included in your Smart statement, based on the profile data used to calculate amounts due in your smart statement.  All information provided via these sources will enable you to use electricity more efficiently and economically.

Both import (consumption) and export (microgeneration) profile data will be available in the standard harmonized format file.

[1] If we do not receive data from your smart meter because of an interruption to connectivity, we will use estimated data. We will indicate this clearly on the bill. 

We can only provide interval based services if there is adequate connectivity. If the connectivity degrades and we can no longer offer you your current tariff as a result, we will contact you.