The Government and Ofgem (our industry regulator) have still to agree the full design requirements for smart metering for the UK. Once this is done, meter manufacturers can begin planning to make the quantities required and systems can be built and installed to manage the meters and the data from them. This will take a couple of years to complete to a level that can cope with the total of 46m smart meters that will need to be fitted in the UK (for electricity and gas at all home and businesses).
It's expected that smart meters will the start to be installed, in volumes, from 2013. Before that, some suppliers, including npower, are carrying out controlled pilots of metering and products to support the 'mass market' developments. Presently all of npower's pilots have enough customers enrolled. We do however shortly plan to create an option for our customers to 'register early' for a smart meter so that we can try and prioritise customers based on their interest and demand'.
