Paul Cooper MD Alt HAN Co
Alt HAN Newsletter Spring 2025
A message from Paul Cooper
Welcome to the Spring 2025 edition of the Alt HAN newsletter.
Our mission at Alt HAN is to deliver products and services that extend the range of the Home Area Network and integrate seamlessly into the smart meter rollout plans of energy suppliers. Our technology is key to ensuring that no customers are left behind in the transition to smart energy.
This quarter has been characterised by consolidation. First, as more energy suppliers restart installations, and begin deploying at higher volumes. In this context we saw total Alt HAN installs push through the 3,000 barrier in February. Second, as we grow and mature our service offering to make more buildings “smart ready” through co-ordinated work to create enough space in meter rooms.
In both cases, this is ahead of expected significant ramp up in volumes in the second half of 2025. Our plans for the re-designed Bridge 2 and 3 devices which reinstate the plug-through feature remain on track for delivery to energy suppliers from June onwards. We are also seeing more energy suppliers making use of the Alt HAN test lab in Bolton as we support them in building operational readiness for rolling out at scale. And even at this early stage, our work in meter rooms is generating valuable insights by confirming some buildings as smart ready without additional works.
The most recent official data shows that around two-thirds of households and small businesses already have smart meters. We believe that Alt HAN has a key role to play in helping to sustain progress, and as part of the toolkit to address challenges such as premises where home area network issues would otherwise have prevented a successful first time smart install or to resolve some issues for gas smart meters not operating in smart mode. We are committed to working with our energy supplier members to drive better outcomes for consumers.
Assuring positive outcomes for consumers
The Alt HAN bridges are a simple, elegant solution to the problem of how to extend the Home Area Network in a customer’s home. Designed to integrate seamlessly, and be “set and forget”, when a customer has a smart meter installed. Testing and technical assurance has a key role to play in providing all stakeholders with confidence that the solutions will work as expected for their full operational life.
The purpose-built Alt HAN test lab in Bolton, operated in partnership with SMS, represents the final step in this testing and assurance journey. The lab is configured to test all potential use cases for Alt HAN across a vast range of combinations of meters, comms hubs and firmware. We undertake interoperability testing, functional & regression testing, performance & stability testing and change management testing. It is also a valuable resource for energy suppliers to use to test their own combinations of devices directly, and to access training on the installation process.
Since the lab opened in 2022, many energy suppliers have used the facility to build their understanding of Alt HAN, ahead of rolling out the solutions to their customers. In January, we were pleased to host a large team from British Gas.
Project manager for Alt HAN, Ian Clark:
We used the Alt HAN test labs for our Testing and Training teams. The tailored setup really helped bring the Alt HAN solutions to life, enabling us to deliver our end-to-end test scenarios which simulated how the solutions will work in our customer homes. The Alt HAN team were extremely supportive and helpful in facilitating our testing whilst in the lab. They were quick to action any support requests and were keen to understand any issues we encountered and help overcome them.
We were also able to use the lab to deliver some of our key training sessions. This moved the training from being purely theoretical to more practical by being able to see the equipment in use.”
Alt HAN Head of Testing, Lydia Igoche:
The Alt HAN test lab is a hugely valuable resource for the sector, and it is great to see more and more energy suppliers taking advantage of the services Alt HAN and our testing partner SMS can deliver there. Helping to sustain confidence and operational readiness as Alt HAN solutions get rolled out at scale.”
Position Today
Figures as of 3rd April 2025
1
Smart installs using Alt HAN devices
1
Energy suppliers who have ordered Alt HAN devices
001k
Devices delivered and committed orders
1
Energy suppliers signed up to Alt HAN
1%
of energy consumers
1
Meter rooms made smart ready by Alt HAN
1
Households benefiting from smart-ready meter rooms
Building Awareness
Alt HAN Co is committed to increasing the number of consumers able to benefit from smart meters. To support this, we have a dedicated website that provides information on who we are, what we do and how Alt HAN solutions work.
There is also a dedicated section that provides answers to frequently asked questions; this is continually reviewed and updated based on the questions we are asked and the feedback we receive from our ‘Get in Touch’ form, which connects enquiries to our Customer Operations team. This is proving to be increasingly popular and useful, as the number of installations increases and interest in the Alt HAN solution grows.
As can be seen from the chart, the highest percentage of the enquiries we receive relate to Alt HAN device availability, where our advice to customers it to contact their energy supplier directly.
Reason for contacting Alt HAN Co
Introducing…
Martin Matthews, Product Analyst
I joined Alt HAN over four years ago, after 11 years at Npower as a Smart Metering Senior Test Analyst/Lead. At Alt HAN I focus on product testing to ensure compatibility with smart metering devices, interoperability and keeping on top of firmware changes. I also engage directly with our energy supplier customers to handle technical queries, provide support and share product knowledge to help build their readiness for integrating Alt HAN devices into their smart installation processes seamlessly.
Alt HAN has also provided me with the opportunity to extend my skill set and experience into project management, helping to deliver improvements to Alt HAN’s operational systems. I enjoy the variety and flexibility of work at Alt HAN, and split my time between the Alt HAN office in London, our test facility in Bolton and my home in Leeds.
Outside of work, I spend time with my family. We enjoy holidays, days out, and playing games. On weekends, I watch Leeds United, typically at a pub with my wife. We sometimes have disagreements since she supports a different team and cheers for the opposition which occasionally we end up falling out over it for a short while!!
Organisational news
At Alt HAN we take pride in putting our people and our culture first. One great way this manifests itself is through the many activities and initiatives driven by our staff committees.
Environmental, Social & Governance staff committee member, Victoria Bayliffe:
This quarter our ESG committee held a bake sale at our offices in Norwich Street, London to raise funds for the Soup Kitchen. The Soup Kitchen provides meals, clothing, and toiletries to their guests of approximately 200 homeless, elderly, lonely, and vulnerable individuals in London daily. The sale was a huge success raising in excess of £500 and the funds will be used to purchase items from their wish list. The event brought the whole building together and whilst enjoying some delicious bakes it further raised awareness of this fantastic local cause.”
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) Committee member, Priya Punj:
The first quarter of 2025 has been action-packed for our ED&I Committee. We kicked off the year by reviewing our internal EDI policy and publishing our EDI external website page.
We focused on raising awareness around religion, creating a virtual board for colleagues to share their thoughts and producing a booklet outlining key beliefs and festivals of six major world religions. We marked Holocaust Memorial Day with an intranet blog and launched a commitment challenge inspired by Lent. We also engaged with Race Equality Week, sharing materials to keep colleagues informed about key concepts in racism. For disability awareness, we focused on dyslexia and introduced a sign language awareness challenge.”
Another strength of Alt HAN is how effectively we work with our energy supplier members, and how important their full and active support is to how we run day-to-day. The monthly Board meetings of Alt HAN Co is a prime example, where senior staff from a range of energy suppliers volunteer in their time and expertise to support, challenge and help to govern Alt HAN as a business.
The Alt HAN Board first met in 2016 and February marked its 100th meeting, chaired by Jonathan Brennan (E.ON) and supported by current members Ismey Kelly (OVO Energy), Roger Ellis (EdF), Clemmie Davis (Octopus Energy) and Adam Bailey (British Gas). It was great to host them all at the Alt HAN office in London to mark the occasion!
