On 23 February 2026 a quietly significant piece of consumer law came into force. Three new Smart Meter Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSoPs) — sitting under Ofgem's Standard Licence Condition framework and finalised in the regulator's Final Decision on Smart Meter Guaranteed Standards (January 2026) — now require energy suppliers to pay £40 automatically when they miss an installation appointment, fail to investigate a faulty meter, or do not provide a resolution plan within five working days. The standards apply to domestic customers and to microbusinesses with a SMETS1 or SMETS2 meter. Most billpayers do not yet know the rules exist, and most suppliers are not volunteering payment.
What the three new standards actually require
The three standards, set out in Ofgem's Final Decision document published on the regulator's website in January 2026, sit alongside the existing GSoPs that already cover late switching, deemed contracts and complaint-handling. The first standard requires suppliers to offer a smart meter installation appointment within six weeks for domestic customers, and within 60 working days (roughly 12 weeks) for microbusinesses. The clock starts the day the customer requests an installation in writing or through the supplier's normal channels. If no offered date falls within that window, the customer is entitled to a £40 payment, and the payment must arrive within 10 working days without the customer having to chase it.
The second standard handles failed installation appointments. If an engineer arrives but cannot complete the job because of something within the supplier's control — wrong equipment, no qualified installer, software issue, missing paperwork — the customer is owed £40. Faults that are genuinely outside supplier control (a property issue, a customer not being present after confirmation, a network outage) are excluded, but the burden of proof sits with the supplier, not the customer. The third standard concerns ongoing problems with an installed smart meter: when a customer reports that the meter has gone into "dumb mode" or is sending wrong readings, the supplier must produce a written resolution plan inside five working days. Miss that, and another £40 is due.
Why this matters more for microbusinesses than the press coverage suggested
Most of the February 2026 reporting focused on households. The microbusiness side has had less attention and is in some ways more useful. A microbusiness, defined under Ofgem's licence framework, is a non-domestic site using fewer than 100,000 kWh of electricity or 293,000 kWh of gas a year, or with fewer than ten employees and turnover below £2 million. A surprising share of UK businesses fall into this bracket — corner shops, salons, takeaways, single-site offices, small workshops. These customers are exactly the ones who, in the Energy Ombudsman's published case digests, most often report long delays getting a faulty meter replaced and end up on estimated bills for months. The new GSoP gives them automatic redress without having to escalate.
The standards do not, however, apply to general (non-microbusiness) commercial customers — manufacturing sites, larger offices, anyone on a half-hourly meter. Those customers still rely on the older GSoPs and on the bilateral terms of their supply contract. If you are unsure whether your site qualifies, the threshold tests sit in the Standards of Conduct framework summarised in our standards of conduct glossary entry, and you can sense-check your annual usage against your last 12 bills using the totals from our back-billing calculator page.
What "automatic" really means — and what to do when it isn't
"Automatic" in Ofgem's drafting means the supplier must identify the failure itself, calculate the £40, and credit it within 10 working days, with a clear line on the customer's next bill or statement. In practice, automatic payment depends on the supplier's internal monitoring being good enough to flag missed deadlines. Several of the larger suppliers told the regulator during consultation that they would need months of system work to get this fully reliable. Until that catches up, customers will have to nudge.
If you believe a standard has been missed and no payment has appeared after 10 working days, the route is straightforward. Raise it as a formal complaint with the supplier in writing, citing "Smart Meter Guaranteed Standards (GSoPs 1, 2 or 3) effective 23 February 2026" and the specific date of the missed appointment or fault report. The supplier has eight weeks to resolve. If they do not, or if they reject the claim, the matter goes to the Energy Ombudsman free of charge — the route we explain in detail in our companion piece on when to escalate to the Ombudsman versus Ofgem.
What to do if this affects you
- Within the next 7 days: check whether you (or any sites you manage) requested a smart meter installation in late 2025 or early 2026 that did not happen. If the request is older than six weeks (domestic) or 60 working days (microbusiness), you may already be owed £40 per missed window.
- Within 14 days: pull the last three bills for any microbusiness premises showing estimated readings ("E") for more than two consecutive months. That is a strong signal the meter is not communicating, which triggers Standard 3.
- By the next bill date: if you spot a missed standard, write to the supplier with the date, the standard number, and a request for the £40 to be credited within 10 working days. Keep the message short — there is no need to argue it; the regulator's text already does the work.
- If no credit appears: lodge a formal complaint, wait eight weeks (or for a deadlock letter), then submit to the Energy Ombudsman.
- Ongoing: any business above the microbusiness threshold should ask its supplier or consultant in writing whether equivalent service-level credits are written into the supply contract. They often are not, and they should be.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Are the £40 payments taxable?
A: Ofgem treats them as compensation for service failure rather than rebates against a supply, so for VAT-registered businesses they should sit outside the scope of VAT. For income tax or corporation tax treatment, take advice — the amounts are small but the principle matters if a business receives several.
Q: Does the GSoP apply if my smart meter has gone "dumb" but is still recording usage locally?
A: Yes. The third standard is triggered by a reported problem the supplier does not produce a five-day resolution plan for. A meter that has lost remote communication but is recording locally still meets the definition of a "problem" for the purposes of the standard.
Q: I am a microbusiness with two sites. Do I get £40 per site or per company?
A: Per site. Each MPAN or MPRN is treated separately under the licence conditions. If both sites missed the same appointment standard, both £40 payments are due.
Q: When does GSoP 4 — the 90-day "dumb meter" standard — come in?
A: Ofgem deferred a final decision on GSoP 4 in its January 2026 paper and committed to further work in the second half of 2026. There is no live obligation yet, but suppliers know it is coming.
Sources: Ofgem, "Final Decision on smart meter Guaranteed Standards", published January 2026; Ofgem press release "Ofgem to roll out tougher smart meter rules from February", January 2026; Ofgem Impact Assessment on Guaranteed Standards (January 2026), redress estimate £19.7m; Standard Licence Conditions (electricity and gas) consolidated June 2025.