Smart meter rollout shows signs of recovery

Signs of recovery are beginning to appear in the smart meter rollout but monthly installations are still down by 67 per cent compared to last year.

According to the latest figures from ElectraLink, almost 69,000 devices were installed last month which is 25 per cent more than in May.

At the height of the lockdown, social distancing guidelines meant engineers were unable to enter a customer’s home to install a smart meter, save for an emergency. This resulted in a sharp decrease in smart meter installations in March and April.

Non-essential site visits were resumed towards the end of May, resulting in a 49 per cent increase in installations during the month when compared to April.

Southern England saw the most installations (9,222), followed by the East of England (8,910) and East Midlands (7,524).

The cumulative number of installations since the programme began is now 13,465,127.

According to the Data Communications Company (DCC), more than 4.5 million second-generation SMETS2 devices have been installed on the network and almost 578,000 first-generation SMETS1 devices have been migrated.

Last year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced the deadline would be pushed back to 2024. Due to the impact of coronavirus, the rollout deadline has been pushed back again by six months.

Utility Week recently published an interview with Angus Flett, chief executive of the DCC. You can read it here.