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The number of smart meter installations has reached 4.89 million according to the latest government figures.
The quarterly statistics from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy showed a 31 per cent increase in domestic installations on the previous quarter, but this represents just an increase of 0.7 million in the last three months.
The figures also show that the smaller non-domestic sites installation rate decreased by 18 per cent in Q3.
A total of 815,000 domestic smart meters were installed by the large energy suppliers in Q3 2016, of which 461,300 were electricity meters and 353,700 gas meters.
Large suppliers operated a total of 4.05 million meters in smart mode across domestic properties by 30 September this year, which is 8 per cent of all domestic meters operated by large suppliers.
The figures have caused some concern within the industry that with less than 5 million meters installed, government is far from its target of installing 50 million smart meters by 2020.
Head London digital agency utilities technology expert Robert McFarlane said: “With these latest figures, the government still has a way to go if they want to meet their goal of delivering 50 million smart meters in 30 million premises by 2020. While demonstrating the value that smart meters offer to consumers can be challenging, it is essential if we want to successfully upgrade our energy infrastructure.”
Small energy suppliers have reported installing a total of 285,000 smart meters during 2015, the majority (147,500) electricity smart meters and the remainder (137,500) were gas smart meters.
The first statistical report on the progress of the smart metering roll-out obligation for large energy suppliers was published in September 2013 and is updated every quarter. Figures for the final quarter of 2016 are expected in March next year.
Some delay to the number of meters being installed is expected after the smart meter network operator, the Data and Communications Company, missed its final deadline and only went live with SMETS2 at the end of November, as opposed to its original date of December 2015.
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