Commentary on Sections Section 56FA New licensable activities: smart meters
494.Section 91 gives the Secretary of State an order-making power to both create new licensable activities under section 56A of the Electricity Act in relation to smart metering and to order that such new licensable activities shall cease to be licensable.
495.Subsection (2) provides that once activities become licensable, it will be an offence under section 4(1) of the Electricity Act to undertake them without a licence.
496.Subsection (3) sets out the scope of the licensing power and it may only be used to make licensable some or all of the activities connected with the provision, installation or operation of smart meters or related infrastructure or services. This could include, for example, the communications infrastructure for smart meters. Subsection (4) provides for the definition of “smart meters” to be set out in the order.
497.Subsection (5) makes provision for the order to include any necessary consequential, transitional, incidental or supplementary changes to primary legislation. This will enable the Secretary of State to add any new licensable activities to the current list of licensable activities in sections 4(1) and 6(1) of the Electricity Act and to make other amendments necessary to ensure that the new licences fit within the existing statutory framework. Such changes could include making a provision similar to section 33(2) of the Utilities Act 2000 to specify how any new standard conditions are to come into effect and/or be suspended; and amending section 33(1) of the Utilities Act so that any modified standard conditions are incorporated as standard conditions for licences of that type.
498.It is envisaged that the existing licensing framework and metering provisions in the Electricity Act will be applied to the new licensable activities including, for example, the procedures for modification of licences in sections 11 to 15 of the Electricity Act and the enforcement powers in sections 25 to 28 of the Electricity Act.
499.Subsection (5)(c) makes provision for the order to specify the standard conditions for any new licensable activities and to modify any existing standard conditions of licences.
500.Subsection (6) sets out a further non-inclusive list of the type of provisions which an order creating new licensable activities could contain. This includes provision restricting the geographic scope of licences which would, for example, facilitate national or regional licensing of smart metering activities (paragraphs (a) and (b)). The order could also confer functions of the Secretary of State or the Authority which would, for example, enable the conferral of the general licensing powers in section 7 of the Electricity Act on the Secretary of State so that he can determine the general licence conditions for any new licences created under these powers.
501.Subsection (7) makes provision for the Secretary of State to specify how long an order will remain in force which could limit the period during which any smart metering activities are licensable.