Smart Meters

The truth about Smart Meters - the good and the bad

Energy supply companies have started installing smart meters for electricity and gas in homes across Great Britain. Between now and 2020, residential and small businesses across England, Scotland and Wales will be offered a smart meter by their energy supplier.

In Northern Ireland the Department for the Economy (DfE) has no plans at present to install smart meters.

A smart meter sends an electronic meter reading to your energy supplier, meaning:

• they won't need to take a manual meter reading - as the meters send back readings themselves
• you won't get estimated bills - as actual readings are available
• it'll be easier to switch energy suppliers - as the reading at changeover is readily available.
• there should be less arguments - as the readings are reliable and not subject to disagreement.

You'll also get a digital display in your home, helping you to keep track of how much energy you're using and how much it's costing.

You won't have to pay for your smart meter or digital display up front - the cost will be included in everyone's energy bill over the next few years.

A smart meter won't change how you currently pay for your energy bill, e.g. monthly or prepaid. This will still be determined by the product and payment method you choose.

Many people have questions about Smart Meters, this web site tries to answer them honestly for electricity and gas meters, thoroughly and without bias. This site does not deal with Smart water meters as our team do not have expertise in that area.

Say No. We recommend customers waiting until winter 2019 before saying yes for a Smart Meter in order to increase the chance of getting a SMETS2 meter. The reasons are:

1. SMETS2 meters are more secure than SMETS1.
2. Functions such as prepayment are more reliable across a range of suppliers.
3. Although 15th March 2019 was the end date for installing SMETS1 meters, this just means that suppliers can't count SMETS1 towards their Ofgem targets. They could still install them if they have stock left over.
4. Even if your supplier says they are installing SMETS2 only, the installer may have some SMETS1 left in their van to use where they can't get a SMETS2 to work or physically fit.
5. SMETS2 meters will have a solution for high rise flats and basements where the meters and IHD (in House Display) are far apart. This is known as the alternative HAN solution and should be available by the end of 2019.

We will keep reviewing the installation figures from Elexon to see if the winter 2019 recommendation can be brought forward.

When we looked around at the information available for Smart Meters on the web we were concerned that it was difficult to get an unbiased view one way or the other. This site tries to give that view.

It may seem strange why suppliers keep pushing smart meters even though customers can just say no. The reason for this is that suppliers have to tell the regulator Ofgem every year what they will achieve by the end of the year in terms of % of customers with a Smart Meter, and they must not miss this target.
Ofgem will also check that the rate of installation is high enough to cover all customers by 2020, so suppliers can't get away with just giving a low figure.
If suppliers don't achieve this forecast then they get fined. For example EDF Energy was fined £350k in June 2018 for missing their own forecast target.

In early 2018 the government and industry agreed to build interfaces which allow the earlier SMETS1 Smart Meters to be moved to the new DCC system supporting SMETS2 meters. This means that, although you may have lost Smart functionally when you changed supplier, when it is enrolled into the new DCC system that functionally will come back, and you’ll be able to change suppliers without technical problems. The process of moving the meters across system is called enrolment and adoption.
See our Technical page for a list of SMETS1 meter types that can be upgraded.

The upgrade and transfer of SMETS1 meters into DCC's systems is planned to occur between June 2019 and the end of 2020. For more details see Annex B on this DCC planning document.
Provided your meters are on the list of meters which can fit into this process on table SMETS 1 Meters for adoption by DCC they should start working again during that transfer period.

On a meter that's "gone dumb" you will only retain the ability to see kWh on your IHD. As the supplier can't communicate with the meter they cannot send a tariff so the p/kWh rates and £ will not be updated. Additionally no meter readings can be automatically collected.

When a meter 'goes dumb' it means that the communications to the meter have stopped. This could be due to a communications failure or due to the current supplier not supporting the communication method to that meter.

There are a number of meter standards out there currently, only the latest SMETS2 standard is fully interoperable, meaning only SMETS2 are supported by all suppliers and allow customers to switch without losing any services or requiring any equipment changes. SMETS2 meters are now being installed in large volumes.
SMETS1 meters usually require replacing when you change supplier to retain a smart service. However due to the large volume of SMETS1 meters, there is now an agreement to allow SMETS1 meters to be upgraded and enrolled into the new DCC systems and thus allow smooth switching for customers. See our Technical page for a list of SMETS1 meter types that can be upgraded.

Although your meter calculates your bill so that the cost can be shown on your IHD, your supplier will calculate and produce a bill independently from meter readings collected from your meter. Suppliers do this so that they can produce a bill even if the communications to your meter is broken, i.e. requires an estimated bill.

Credit mode is where you pay for energy though a paying a amount of money regularly, usually a fixed amount. If your energy consumption goes above what you have paid for the supplier will allow you to re-pay over a period thereby offering you credit.
Prepayment is when you pay in advance for your energy buy charging a key or putting coins in a meter. The new smart meters will allow you to pay through the internet.

Each supplier started installing high volumes of SMETS1 Smart Meters in 2017, and started on SMETS2 meters in 2018. They are keen to install as many as they can to meet government targets. Whether they can install at your particular address is mainly governed the the signal availablity on the new SMETS2 DCC Network; there was 97% coverage by the end of 2018 and there will be 99.25% by the end of 2020.
Contact your supplier if you would like a smart meter installed, however it is up to you if you want a smart meter as they are not compulsory.

If your electricity and gas is with different suppliers, each supplier will contact you to make an appointment to install a smart meter for the fuel they supply to you. SMETS2 equipment has been designed to a particular standard so that all the meters and In Home Displays can talk together, this way you only need one In Home Display which will normally be supplied by the first supplier who installs a smart meter in your home. However the earlier SMETS1 standard did not always interoperate unless the meters were on the same system, and even then support for interoperability by suppliers was poor.

Smart meters have the facility to remotely disconnect and reconnect both the electricity and gas supply. However most suppliers seem to have decided it is too dangerous to remotely disconnect or reconnect, as in the case of disconnection they cannot always be sure that the customer isn't relying on a supply for serious health reasons and in the case of reconnection the customer may have left a cooker on for example.

Normally your PAYG top-up will be sent automatically to the smart meter, however if the communications link through the mobile network is not available then this cannot happen.
Firstly you can use the emergency credit that most suppliers offer. If that runs out you can enter the long authorisation number that you received when you paid for the credit into the meter or IHD to apply your credit. This very difficult to do on the meter so use the IHD if you can.

The specification for these Smart Meters requires 13 months worth of consumption data to be stored at the highest level of detail, which is at half hourly measurement intervals.

The measure of CO₂ on your IHD (In Home Display) shows the amount of CO₂ given off by power stations generating the electricity you are using. The calculation is set by Ofgem based on the average amount of carbon dioxide emitted for every kWh of energy generated. The average is for the fuel mix across entire UK energy industry, so may be misleading if you have opted for a CO₂ free source such as Wind or Nuclear.

It is a bit misleading to say Smart Meters are inherently more accurate than traditional meters as they all must meet the same standards. The improved accuracy is around billing, as meter readings will be collected automatically and stamped with the precise date/time.

Whilst earlier conversations about smart meters focused on safety (which you can read more about in Campaigns Against), more recent criticisms have sprung from how the government and suppliers are handling the roll-out. From cost to customer communication, the plan to get a smart meter into every home by 2020 has been a bumpy ride so far. In early 2014, EDF Energy, ScottishPower and npower called for a review of the roll-out, stating the cost to customers would be £1.8 billion. This, they said, was due to the "ambitious" deadline of every household in four years and the cost of the In Home Displays. The cost is ultimately paid by customers through measures on their energy bills. Instead, suppliers proposed, customers could link up their smart meter to their smartphone or tablet to save cost. In 2013, independent research commissioned by uSwitch found that 55% of us were "in the dark" about smart meters. That meant households did not understand what smart meters did and how they could benefit them. However, later studies of those with actual smart meters in their homes enjoyed more accurate billing and were more satisfied with their providers.

A smart meter itself won't save you money, but the In Home Display (IHD) your smart meter comes with can offer much insight into how to lower your bills. Your IHD lets you see how much energy you are using at different times of the day, week, month or year, which should help you cut your energy usage and your bills by highlighting ways you can be more energy efficient.
The Centre for Sustainable Energy has advice on Smart Meters and other ways to save money on energy.
Also over time the technology will lead to the creation of innovative new tariffs and personalised plans individually tailored to fit your lifestyle and energy consumption.

Large blocks of flats, say over 20 homes, can have technical problems connecting the Smart Meter to the In Home Display, as the meters are often in a common area at some distance from the room where the In Home Display will be located. The roll-out to these properties will be later when technical solutions have been investigated, probably starting late 2019. Small blocks of flats are being treated the same as other smaller properties during the national roll-out.

Yes. Smart meters work in both credit and prepayment modes. In fact, prepayment customers will have more flexible payment options available to them with smart meters, including remote top-up facilities.

Customers who opt to pre-pay for their energy should have a fall back means of applying a top up locally to their meter in the event of a temporary loss of WAN communications. This can be most easily achieved with a PPMID (pre-payment meter interface device), which allows the customer to easily enter a purchase reference number. Most suppliers now use IHDs with integrated PPMID functionality.

The total cost is estimated to be £11 billion, however the estimated savings are expected to be £17 billion. So even after the investment of installing smart meters for everyone, there should be a national saving of £6 billion by 2030. See this government document for more details Smart Meter Rollout Cost-Benefit Analysis.

The average household can expect to make yearly savings of £11 by 2020, and with rising energy costs the saving will rise to £47 a year by 2030. The equivalent saving figures for business customers are £128 and £147 respectively.