The number of smart meters installed by large energy suppliers between April and June this year was down 7% on the previous quarter and 4% on the same period last year.
The latest update from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) shows that during the second quarter of 2023 a total of 834,500 smart and advanced meters were installed by large energy suppliers across Great Britain. Of these c.800,000 were in domestic properties. The government lists 14 “large” energy suppliers, ranging in size from So Energy to British Gas.
The release caveats that comparisons with the previous quarter have to be put in the context that there were four fewer working days in Q2. However, there was also a decline against Q2 2022, which had the same number of working days.
When looking at household smart meter installations, gas decreased slightly more than electricity (8% versus 6%).
At the end of June, there were over 33 million smart and advanced meters in Great Britain, meaning 53% of all domestic meters operated by large suppliers (who account for 99% of the total) are smart in smart mode.
Despite the sluggish progress during Q2, figures for July released by Electralink recently showed 210,000 installations – a 14% rise year-on-year and an increase of a thousand meters on June.
Earlier this year, a Utility Week analysis of government figures showed the rate of smart meter installations must more than double to have any chance of completing the rollout by the 2025 deadline.
Based on the pace of installations over the past year, c.13.4 million homes and small businesses will still not have a smart or advanced meter at the end of 2025. To make up ground, suppliers would have to fit 700,000 devices per month.
Experts speaking to Utility Week at the time warned that the industry has all but exhausted the low-hanging fruit for smart meter installations and is now faced with increasingly trickier prospects such as tower blocks and farmhouses.
There were also calls for the government to give more explicit backing to the rollout and emphasise the link between smart meters and net zero.