There’s Nothing “Voluntary” About a Smart Meter

Although I am not on board with Rupert Lowe’s new political party (I remain a loyal ‘Sir Nigel’ band member), I increasingly find myself fielding the same criticism levelled at him. Question anything that sits comfortably within the modern consensus and you are quickly placed in the same bracket, as though mild scepticism is a sign of defect rather than a starting point for discussion. That is where we now are. I do not want a smart meter and I do not currently have one, which seems to be enough to invite suspicion in itself.

My instinct is to question systems that expand quietly while being presented as optional. That instinct was sharpened during COVID-19, when measures introduced with caveats and assurances had a tendency to outgrow both. It is therefore difficult to accept repeated claims at face value when the structure surrounding them suggests a different outcome. The smart meter rollout is a good example of that approach. No law says that you must have one. That line is repeated often and confidently. Think Nadim Zahawi (Reform – why?!) denying the roll-out of vaccine passports only for this to became mandatory in certain settings weeks later. At the point it is parroted it is true but what is not explained with the same clarity is how the system has been constructed so that, in time, most households will end up with one regardless of their initial preference.

The mechanism is not complicated, though it is rarely set out plainly. Electricity meters are not permanent fixtures. Under the Electricity Act 1989 and the Meters (Certification) Regulations 1998, they must be certified and approved for billing purposes and that certification has a defined lifespan. For many homes built in the early 2000s, that lifespan is around 20 years. Once it expires, the meter is no longer compliant and cannot remain in service. At that point, the supplier is required to replace it. That requirement is no longer discretionary. It sits alongside another obligation, this time within Ofgem’s licence conditions, which requires suppliers to take all reasonable steps to install smart meters when replacing existing equipment. Traditional non-smart meters have largely disappeared from circulation. They are not widely manufactured, they are not offered as replacements and they do not form part of the current rollout strategy. When a replacement is required, what is fitted in practice is a SMETS2 smart meter.

While the existing meter remains within certification, there is room to decline. Emails can be ignored, appointments can be refused and the matter can be pushed away. That window remains open only for as long as the meter remains compliant. Once the certification expires, the position changes. The old meter cannot stay and the replacement offered is ‘smart’. There is no alternative presented at that stage. The process does not rely on compulsion in the conventional sense. It works by removing every other option.

The technical framework that follows is not incidental. SMETS2 meters are enrolled onto the Data Communications Company network, a centrally managed system established under the regulatory framework that developed after the Energy Act 2008. Suppliers are required to participate in that system. When a smart meter is installed, it is connected and begins communicating automatically. Consumers are told that they can control how their data are used, which is true up to a point. Billing frequency can be set to monthly rather than daily or half-hourly, marketing can be declined and third-party access can be restricted. Those are real choices, though they relate to how the supplier interacts with the data rather than whether the data exist. The homeowner is simply allowed to decide how much glitter to roll the turd in.

Half-hourly consumption data are recorded regardless of the billing preference selected. Ofgem’s Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement programme relies on that level of detail to balance supply and demand across the grid and allocate costs within the system. The supplier may only use monthly reads for billing if that is your preference, though the underlying measurement remains far more granular. That distinction is not always made clear. This matters because it shows where control genuinely sits. The customer can influence presentation. The system itself continues to operate at full resolution.

The financial consequences follow naturally from that structure. A system built on granular measurement lends itself to costs that reflect when energy is used. Winter demand is higher, so winter bills rise accordingly. Summer demand is lower and bills fall with it. What had previously been spread across the year becomes concentrated in the months where consumption is greatest. The traditional approach, which relied on a small number of readings and averaged payments over time, allowed households to plan with a degree of certainty. Two readings a year, one in spring and one in autumn, were enough to keep the account aligned while smoothing the extremes. The household paid a steady amount and the variation in usage was absorbed within the system rather than passed directly through.

That arrangement is now being replaced by one that exposes those variations in full. High usage produces high cost at the point it occurs and the financial impact is no longer softened by the structure of the billing system. That may be described as accuracy and in a narrow technical sense it is. It also makes budgeting more difficult, particularly for households that rely on predictability rather than constant adjustment.

It is worth remembering how widely supported this direction of travel has been. The legislative framework begins with the Energy Act 2008, introduced by Gordon Brown’s Labour government. The Conservative and Lib Dem Coalition and later Conservative governments carried it forward, Labour continues it and there has been no meaningful political resistance at any stage. That level of agreement is often presented as strength. To me it screams dodgy. No healthy legislation receives so much untrammelled support.

What exists now is a nationwide infrastructure capable of recording detailed energy usage, transmitting it centrally and feeding it into a regulatory system designed to reshape how electricity is priced and consumed. It is being introduced by stealth via the back door, through certification rules, supplier obligations and the removal of alternatives. The language surrounding it remains careful. The process is described as “voluntary“. The practical outcome is that, once existing meters reach the end of their life, all households will move onto smart metering whether they ever actively chose to or not.

Call it what you like. I call it a con.

And yes, as you’ve probably deduced, my electricity meter’s certification expired a few days ago.