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Smart metres considerably enhance UK energy supplier switching through SMETS2 technology, which maintains full functionality during changeovers. The Central Switching Service has reduced changeover times from three weeks to just five working days, with 24-hour switches planned for the future.
Smart metres provide automatic readings throughout the switching process, ensuring accurate billing without manual intervention. As of March 2025, 67% of UK metres are smart-enabled, with performance rates varying between suppliers from 86.8% to 98.3%. The following sections examine how these technical improvements translate into practical benefits for consumers.
As the United Kingdom accelerates its shift towards a digital energy infrastructure, smart metres have emerged as the cornerstone technology reshaping how consumers monitor and manage their electricity and gas consumption.
By March 2025, 39 million smart and advanced metres had been installed across Great Britain, representing 67% of all metres nationwide. The implementation has created a network connecting 20.5 million homes and small businesses, with 35 million devices operating in smart mode.
By March 2025, smart metre penetration reached 67% across Great Britain, with 35 million devices actively operating in smart mode.
This digital conversion delivers measurable environmental benefits, with 1.25 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions saved over the year to April 2025.
Second-generation SMETS2 metres now dominate installations, supported by extensive data infrastructure that tracks real-time energy consumption and enables automatic metre readings across the expanding network. In May 2025 alone, 215,000 smart metre installations were recorded, marking the highest monthly figure for the year.
The standardised consumption data generated by smart metres allows businesses and households to identify usage patterns and make evidence-based decisions about their energy contracts. For UK SMEs in particular, this usage profiling enables more accurate comparisons when evaluating commercial gas and electricity tariffs during the switching process.
Smart metre data enables businesses to implement contract optimisation strategies that align energy tariffs with actual consumption patterns, ensuring suppliers offer terms that reflect real usage rather than estimated figures. When switching suppliers, detailed consumption information facilitates clear comparisons of unit rates and standing charges across multiple providers, ensuring customers select the most suitable tariff for their needs.
How effectively do smart metres facilitate the process of changing energy suppliers? The impact varies greatly between metre generations.
SMETS2 metres maintain full functionality throughout supplier changes, with readings continuing effortlessly and in-home displays remaining operational. Remote updates occur seamlessly with new supplier details, eliminating physical replacements.
The Central Switching Service has transformed timelines, reducing switches from three weeks to five working days maximum. 24-hour switches are planned for the future. Data and payment details transfer securely between suppliers through streamlined systems.
SMETS1 metres present temporary limitations, potentially losing smart functionality during changes due to proprietary communication systems. Over 11 million SMETS1 metres have been connected to the DCC network as of August 2023.
These metres continue recording usage accurately but may require manual readings until remote migration to the national network restores smart services.
When switching energy suppliers with a smart metre installed, UK consumers in 2025 encounter considerably faster changes than in previous years.
The Central Switching Service completes transfers within five working days maximum, replacing the previous three-week timeline.
During this changeover, smart metres maintain automatic reading functionality and real-time energy usage information, enabling more accurate billing throughout the process.
Performance varies across suppliers, with rates ranging from 86.8% to 98.3% smart mode operation during switching periods.
This consistency supports the 252,000 switches recorded in January 2025 alone, representing a 22% increase from January 2024.
The improved infrastructure shifts consumer perception away from historically complicated, slow experiences towards reliable, efficient changes between suppliers whilst maintaining access to flexible tariffs.
Household customers remain the primary beneficiaries of streamlined switching processes, representing 88% of all supplier changes in January.
While switching processes have become exceptionally smoother for consumers, the underlying smart meter performance during and after these switches varies greatly between energy suppliers.
As of June 2025, E leads the industry at 98.3% smart mode operation, followed by OVO Energy at 94.7% and Utilita at 94.1%. This creates an 11.5 percentage point gap between top and bottom performers, with ScottishPower operating at 86.8%.
Performance trajectories reveal divergent paths among major suppliers. SSE Energy demonstrates the strongest improvement, rising from 90.5% to 94.0%, whilst British Gas increased from 83.7% to 87.4%.
Conversely, So Energy declined significantly from 90.8% to 87.2%.
These variations greatly impact customer experience post-switch, as metres operating outside smart mode lose critical functionality and real-time monitoring capabilities. Utilita’s specialisation in pay-as-you-go prepayment smart metres has contributed to its strong performance ranking of 94.1% in smart mode operation.
As smart metre penetration reaches critical mass across Great Britain’s energy market, the technology’s influence on consumer switching behaviour has become increasingly pronounced.
With 61% of domestic metres operating in smart mode by Q1 2025 and nearly 20.5 million properties connected by April, the infrastructure now supports seamless supplier changes.
Smart metre infrastructure across more than 20 million British properties now enables friction-free supplier switching nationwide.
The correlation between adoption rates and market fluidity manifests through several mechanisms. Real-time consumption data eliminates estimation disputes during supplier changes, whilst mechanised readings prevent final bill delays that previously deterred switching.
Access to flexible tariffs increases consumer engagement with competitive offers. Transparent supplier performance metrics enable informed switching decisions. Smart metres record electric and gas consumption in intervals of an hour or less, enabling precise final readings when changing suppliers.
Daily installations averaging 8,175 metres throughout 2024 demonstrate the accelerating baseline for competition-friendly infrastructure.
This expanding smart metre network fundamentally reshapes switching economics by removing traditional friction points.
