As part of the smart meter rollout, all residential households will be provided with an In-Home Display (IHD) capable of displaying near real-time information on their energy consumption, by 2018/19. The core aim of offering IHDs is to give customers a tool to help them better manage their energy use and reduce their energy bills.
The Government has said it would consider how best to ensure that, when providing customers with IHDs, suppliers meet consumers’ accessibility requirements in order to support customers to reduce their energy consumption in both the short and longer term. With this in mind Consumer Focus commissioned Ricability, a specialist consumer research organisation to review relevant reports, guidelines and published papers in order to shed light on factors that can affect usability of IHDs.
