An in-depth look at the benefits and drawbacks of smart meters, and whether they truly help homeowners save on energy bills.
Smart meters are great pieces of kit for any household looking to get an understanding of its energy usage, but are they actually worth it?
We’ve answered that here, looking into the key benefits of getting a smart meter, and for balance, what the downsides are.
We’ll also let you know how you can get one yourself and whether there are any government incentives supporting getting a smart meter.
What is a smart meter?
A smart meter is a tool that measures how much energy you use. It’s an electrical device designed to replace your old manual meter that you’d normally have to fumble around in a cupboard to read.
It’s a way to give both you and your energy supplier the clearest, most accurate picture of how much energy you’re actually using.
Most smart meters look like small screens (called In-Home Displays, or IHDs) that show you, in real-time, what energy your home is consuming.
It might sound silly, but there’s something oddly satisfying about trying to save energy (boiling a kettle for less time, for example) and seeing your smart meter show you what you’re saving on the screen.
How do smart meters work?
When you have a smart meter installed, it’ll be hooked up to the mains and it can then track your electricity and gas usage. Be aware that if you get your gas and electricity from different suppliers, you’ll need two smart meters to check their usage individually.
Once the meter is hooked up and monitoring usage, all this information will appear on the IHD so you can easily understand what energy you’re consuming. The information displayed will also be sent to your energy supplier(s) automatically.
It does this via a secure national communication network, as your smart meter doesn’t use your WiFi. Thankfully, this means your smart meter can continue providing accurate readings even if your internet goes down.
Your smart meter should always remain switched on but don’t worry about it using too much electricity. According to Smart Energy GB (the government campaign behind the smart meter rollout), a smart meter uses less than £2 of electricity a year.
What are the benefits of installing a smart meter?
Smart meters have lots of benefits, including the obvious one of being able to read how much energy you’re using. You can also benefit from selling excess electricity if you have solar panels — you can’t do this without a smart meter.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the benefits, before we go into them in more detail:
Smart meters save you money
You’ll shrink your carbon emissions
You don’t have to manually read your meter anymore
You’ll get more accurate energy bills
You can sell excess solar energy back to the grid
Smart meters save you money
Look, we’ll say it right now that a smart meter doesn’t automatically guarantee you’ll save money or reduce your energy usage.
Instead, a smart meter gives increased awareness of the energy you use. With this knowledge, you can make better decisions about your energy usage, such as not using your tumble dryer or dishwasher during peak electricity times.
Your smart meter will make it plain as day how much your energy usage is costing you, and it can be pretty eye-opening!
Basically, all a smart meter does is increase your knowledge on what energy you use. And after all, knowledge is power.
You’ll shrink your carbon emissions
Using your smart meter to reduce how much energy you use, means shrinking your carbon emissions.
Around 17% of all UK emissions come from households, so using a smart meter to help reduce these is your way of helping the country reach net-zero emissions.
You don’t have to manually read your meter anymore
Do you hate having to rifle through a cupboard to find your electricity meter? Or are you tired of not understanding the confusing numbers displayed on your meter?
Rejoice, because smart meters completely remove the pain of having to manually read your meter, and submit it to your supplier.
Instead, it does all of this automatically, making energy management much simpler. A smart meter eliminates the worry of making a mistake with a meter reading too, so energy bills will always be based on your exact energy usage.
You’ll get more accurate energy bills
Old-school metering systems rely on guesswork to estimate your energy bill, which means how much you pay might not actually reflect how much you’ve used.
Not everyone remembers to submit regular readings either, because life is often busy enough and it’s easy to forget.
Smart meters on the other hand, consistently and regularly send meter readings to your supplier, meaning they’ll always know how much energy you’re actually using. Your supplier will then send you accurate energy bills, instead of trying to piece together your energy usage.
You can sell excess solar energy back to the grid
If you have solar panels and a smart meter, you can benefit from solar tariffs. In short, a solar tariff will pay you for any excess electricity your panels generate but don’t use yourself.
This excess electricity is fed back into the grid, helping make the UK’s electricity supply a little greener.
In order to benefit from a solar tariff, you’ll need a smart meter because otherwise, there’s no accurate way to measure how much solar energy you’re generating.
Installing solar panels is quite expensive, so getting a smart meter is a pretty clever way to start recouping your investment. By exporting excess electricity to the grid, the average UK household can make an extra £160 a year!
What are the downsides to installing a smart meter?
Despite the good smart meters bring, they’re not perfect. Truth be told though, their downsides are few and far between but we’ve done our best to describe them below:
A smart meter won’t automatically save you money
You’ll need to turn off the power when you install one
Smart meters might not work in rural areas
There are privacy concerns
A smart meter won’t automatically save you money
Your smart meter will give you all the information you need to start saving energy and reducing your carbon emissions, but it won’t do this for you.
It’s up to you to actually act on the knowledge it gives you — that means the onus is on you to take steps such as turning off light bulbs, not using demanding appliances during peak electricity hours, and reducing how long you keep the heating on.
You’ll need to turn off the power when you install one
When you get a smart meter installed, the power needs to be turned to make sure the process is safe.
So you’ll be left in the dark, potentially for a while as installing a smart meter can take several hours.
This is generally a pretty small price to pay for getting a smart meter however! As long as you plan in advance, the fact you need to turn the power off for a few hours won’t be too big a deal.
Smart meters might not work in rural areas
In most areas, smart meters not needing WiFi is an advantage, because mobile networks are robust and in no threat of dropping.
This isn’t always the case in rural properties, where mobile network coverage can be patchy. So if you can’t get a mobile signal where you live, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to install a smart meter.
An additional caveat is that many smart meters currently use 2G/3G networks, but there’s concern that when these networks are closed in the future, some 7 million smart meters will be rendered useless and will need upgrades.
There are privacy concerns
A few myths abound about smart meters being able to spy on homes, but this is definitely not true. All a smart meter does is collect data on your energy usage — details like your name, address, and bank account details aren’t stored on the machine.
How to get a smart meter
It’s an easy process to get a smart meter — all you need to do is contact your energy supplier and tell them you’d like to get one installed.
The best part? Both the smart meter and the installation is completely free, because it’s the responsibility of your supplier.
After you’ve arranged the installation, a professional will pop round to get your smart meter installed. It only takes around two hours usually, and as we said earlier, you’ll need to switch the power off for time during the process.
How many UK homes have smart meters?
According to the latest government statistics (July 2024), there are roughly 30 million smart and advanced meters operating in UK homes.
By June 2025, it’s expected that every UK home will have been offered a free smart meter. If you want our advice, take up the offer if you haven’t already!
Finally, is it worth getting a smart meter?
Considering all of the above, yes, it’s absolutely worth getting a smart meter.
With one, you get free, accurate information on your energy usage, which you can use to make positive changes to your energy usage, saving you money on your energy bills.
You’ll also never find yourself scrambling to do a manual reading again. Some people (this author included) have gas meters on the outside of their homes, and when the mercury starts to dip towards freezing, it’s not fun doing a manual meter reading.
Smart meters make saving money easier and understanding energy simpler — and they’re completely free, so why not get one if you can?
