A smarter approach to meter installation

We went the extra mile for Jomast to install 1,000 smart meters.

Programme

Jomast is one of the UK’s leading property development, investment and regeneration specialists, with commercial and residential real estate assets in excess of £250 million. The company, based in Stockton-on-Tees, has built an extensive and diverse property portfolio and a development pipeline covering residential and commercial sectors. It has gained a reputation as a strong, dynamic, forward-thinking organisation.

As part of its activities, Jomast provided 550 residential properties from its portfolio to support a government programme. When energy supplier SSE approached the company about the installation of more than 1,000 smart electricity and gas meters in these houses, there were concerns about access and logistics.

We were contracted by SSE to manage the entire process of fitting advanced meters with automated meter reading (AMR) capability. Once the initial resident contact had been made by Jomast, our planning team took responsibility for running the meter installation programme, keeping Jomast informed of progress every step of the way. Such was the effectiveness of the support provided to Jomast, the company has since engaged us on other commercial projects.

Outcome

The meter exchange programme involved replacing legacy technology with the latest AMR-enabled meters covering both electricity and gas in 550 houses over a six month period.

Jomast looked forward to the benefits that smart metering would bring to the portfolio, including access to near real-time meter readings and an end to estimated billing, but was concerned about the potential disruption to its business that such a programme might cause. The company’s previous experience of meter installation projects had not been without difficulty, but working with us proved to be significantly more positive.

We took responsibility for the entire customer journey led by the planning team based in Livingston, and provided Jomast with regular updates on progress. The client also had a direct line to named members of the team to address any specific queries.

We were able to complete all of the work required within the expected timeframe and Jomast then developed an ongoing relationship with us for new installations at its commercial schemes. Most recently, this involved rescheduling our engineers’ diaries to complete an urgent cabling and meter installation project out-of-hours when the original contractor failed to meet a critical deadline at premises in Middlesborough.