UK Smart Meter Rollout Data

Britain has been fitting smart meters since 2012, and the rollout is usually reported as a single number: how many are installed. That number tells you less than it appears to.

The figures here come from the Government’s quarterly statistics and separate the two things that matter — how many meters exist, and how many are actually working as smart meters. Those are not the same, and the difference between them has been one of the quieter problems of the programme.

Installed is not the same as working

A smart meter does two jobs. It measures your energy, and it sends those readings to your supplier automatically. The first job is the easy one. The second is where meters fall over.

When the communications link fails, the meter carries on measuring perfectly well but stops reporting. The industry calls this operating in traditional mode. You are back to submitting readings yourself or getting estimated bills, and the in-home display usually goes blank or stale.

Crucially, a meter in traditional mode is still counted as installed. So the headline rollout figure includes meters that are not delivering the thing the rollout was for. The official statistics report both, and the gap between them is the honest measure of progress.

The rollout in numbers

Large suppliers report quarterly on meter status and installations. The all-supplier domestic share is published annually and on a slightly different basis, so the two are shown separately rather than blended.

Why a smart meter stops being smart

There are a handful of common reasons, and none of them means the meter is measuring your energy wrongly.

• Poor signal. Meters communicate over a dedicated network — long-range radio in the north of Britain, mobile signal in the south. Thick walls, cellars and remote locations all interfere.
• Switching supplier with a first-generation meter. Early SMETS1 meters were tied to the supplier that fitted them and frequently went dumb when the customer moved. This is the single biggest historical cause.
• Gas meters losing their link to the electricity meter. The gas meter is battery-powered and reports via the electricity meter. If that pairing drops, gas readings stop while electricity carries on.
• Loss of power or a firmware problem after which the meter does not re-establish its connection.

If yours has stopped sending readings, it is worth reporting: suppliers can often fix it remotely, and until they do you should be submitting readings so you are billed on real use rather than estimates.

SMETS1, SMETS2 and why it mattered

The programme ran two generations of meter, and the difference explains much of the rollout’s reputation.

SMETS1 meters were installed first and communicated through systems run by the supplier that fitted them. Switch supplier and the new one often could not talk to your meter, so it reverted to traditional mode. Customers who did the sensible thing — shopping around — were the ones penalised.

SMETS2 meters use a shared national communications network instead, so they keep working across a switch. Most remaining SMETS1 meters have since been migrated onto that same network, reconnecting many that had gone dumb.

If your meter went dark years ago after a switch, it may well be working again now without anyone telling you. Worth checking the display.

What a working smart meter actually gets you

Being clear about this matters, because the rollout was sold in terms that invited disappointment. A smart meter does not reduce your energy use. It is a measuring instrument, not an efficiency measure.

What it does give you:

• Accurate bills. No estimates, no annual reckoning where a year of underestimating suddenly catches up with you.
• Visible usage. The in-home display shows what you are spending as you spend it, which is the closest most households get to seeing where the money goes.
• Access to time-of-use tariffs. This is the big one. Anything that prices by half hour needs half-hourly readings, so no smart meter means no Agile or similar. If you can move washing, charging or heating away from peak times, that is where real savings live.
• Easier switching, since final readings are automatic rather than a negotiation.

Should you have one fitted?

You are not obliged to. Suppliers have rollout targets and will ask, sometimes more than once, but you can decline and keep your existing meter.

The case for is strongest if you are on estimated bills, if you would use a time-of-use tariff, or if you have an electric vehicle or a heat pump — both of which are much cheaper to run on a tariff that rewards shifting load. The case is weakest if you are content submitting readings, have no interest in changing when you use energy, and are in an area with known signal problems.

One thing that is not a reason either way: smart meters do not let a supplier switch you to prepayment remotely without following the same rules and protections that apply to any other meter.

Our guides on how smart meters work and the pros and cons go further into both sides, and typical household energy use gives you something to measure your own readings against.