Smart electricity meter installations have rebounded in Great Britain following the success of the Covid vaccination programme, Electralink has revealed.
Installation numbers last year were affected by the pandemic, with the greatest impact occurring during Q2. Last April installations decreased by almost 95 per cent during the first lockdown as non-essential home visits were halted.
Electralink’s latest data shows there were 219,000 installs in March 2021 – 34 per cent more than the previous month and up 30 per cent year-on-year.
The company said the month-on-month increase is likely due to decreasing coronavirus infection rates and the success of the nationwide vaccine rollout which has allowed more engineers to visit homes.
So far in 2021 more than half a million smart meter installations have taken place.
On a regional basis, the East of England was once again the area with the most installations at 31,000. This was followed by Southern England with 30,000 and the East Midlands with 24,000.
According to the latest government figures there were 23.6 million smart and advanced meters in homes and small businesses in Great Britain as of 31 December 2020.
Meanwhile data from the Data Communications Company (DCC) show that there are more than 11 million smart meters connected to its secure national network.
Of these, more than 7.2 million are second-generation (SMETS2) devices while 3.9 million SMETS1 meters have been migrated over.
The DCC has also revealed that on average weekly SMETS2 installations in the third national lockdown were five times more than in the first (63,000 compared to 11,000).