Half of all energy meters are smart

Official government statistics have revealed that smart and advanced meters made up 50% of all operational energy meters by the end of 2021 – a seven percentage point increase from a year before.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) latest quarterly smart meter update for Q4 2021 showed 3.8 million smart and advanced meters were installed over the whole year. Annual installations were up by 19% when compared to 2020 but remained below pre-Covid levels.

There were a total of 27.8 million smart and advanced meters in homes and small businesses in Great Britain at the end of 2021. Of these, 15.3 million were SMETS1, 11.1 million were SMETS2 and 1.3 million were advanced.

However, more than 15% of smart meters were operating in traditional ‘dumb’ mode. This was a slight improvement from the end of Q3 when 18% of smart meters were in dumb mode.

Large energy retailers were operating 99% of domestic meters – a year-on-year increase of five percentage points. BEIS said this rise was the result of them taking on new customers through the Supplier of Last Resort process as well as the reclassification of two retailers – E and So Energy – as large suppliers.

A total of 3.6 million domestic smart meters were installed in 2021, of which 95% (3.4 million) were installed by large suppliers and 5% (198,100) by small suppliers. The figure increased by 18% when compared to 2020.

Large suppliers installed  833,700 smart meters in the last three months of the year – a 5% decrease when compared to the previous quarter. The update did not include quarterly figures for small retailers.

Meanwhile 145,900 smart and advanced meters were installed in smaller non-domestic sites in 2021, an increase of 48% over the previous year and similar to levels last seen in 2018. Of these meters, 114,200 (78%) were installed by large suppliers and 31,700 (22%) by small suppliers.