UK smart meter rollout in 2026: SMETS1/SMETS2 status, MHHS settlement, and what businesses should ask their supplier

Where the rollout actually stands in 2026

The UK smart meter rollout has been running since 2014 and has been re-extended several times. As of 2026, the headline picture is mixed: the majority of UK domestic and small-business meter points now have a smart or advanced meter installed, but the share varies by supplier, by region, and by meter generation, and a meaningful minority of installations remain in a partial or non-functional state. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Ofgem publish quarterly progress reports; the operational picture for individual customers does not always match the headline coverage figures.

What matters for most businesses is less the national rollout statistics and more the operational state of the meter on their own premises. There are five practical states a meter can be in:

• Traditional electromechanical or electronic meter with no smart capability — supplier-read or customer-read, manually entered.
• SMETS1 smart meter that has been migrated to the Data Communications Company (DCC) and is fully operational with all suppliers.
• SMETS1 smart meter that has not been migrated, or where migration was unsuccessful, operating in "dumb mode" — typically reverting to manual reads after a switch.
• SMETS2 smart meter, fully operational and DCC-connected.
• Advanced (AMR) meter for non-domestic supplies — half-hourly capable, polled by the supplier or MOP, used for HH settlement and increasingly for the wider non-domestic transition under MHHS.

Most domestic customers who switched supplier between roughly 2018 and 2021 had a SMETS1 meter installed, and most have now been migrated to the DCC successfully. A small but persistent fraction were not migrated cleanly and operate in dumb mode; these customers typically discover the problem when they switch supplier and the new supplier issues a manual-read request despite the smart meter being on the wall.

SMETS1 vs SMETS2: the practical difference

The two smart-meter generations differ in how the meter communicates and which supplier can read it:

• SMETS1 meters were the first generation, installed broadly between 2014 and 2018. Each supplier installed meters that initially worked only with their own back-end systems. When a customer switched, the SMETS1 meter typically reverted to dumb mode because the new supplier could not communicate with it.
• SMETS2 meters, the current generation, communicate via the DCC — a centralised national communications network operated by Capita under licence — and are interoperable across all suppliers from day one.

The DCC migration programme, run from 2019 onwards, has been working through the SMETS1 fleet to bring the older meters onto the DCC so that they behave as if they were SMETS2 from a supplier-interoperability perspective. The migration has been slower than originally planned and not every SMETS1 meter has migrated cleanly; some have required physical replacement.

For customers, the practical implications are:

• If you have a smart meter installed before 2018 and have switched supplier since, check whether the meter is currently sending automatic reads. Your supplier's online account or app will show whether the most recent reads are smart-sourced or manual.
• If automatic reads have stopped, contact the supplier — they should arrange remote re-commissioning or a free upgrade to SMETS2.
• If you are signing a new contract that includes a time-of-use tariff (e.g. an EV-overnight tariff or a wholesale-tracking tariff), confirm in writing that the meter is currently smart-operational, not just smart-installed.

The DCC migration and what it means for switching

The Data Communications Company is the central infrastructure that allows any UK supplier to read any smart meter on the network. It is not a brand-name service the customer interacts with directly, but it is the reason that switching supplier today does not, in principle, break smart-meter functionality.

For a meter that has been migrated to the DCC, switching is operationally seamless: the new supplier picks up half-hourly or daily reads automatically, the customer never sees a gap in the data, and the in-home display continues to function. For a meter that has not been migrated, switching can revert the meter to dumb mode; the new supplier issues manual-read prompts, the in-home display may stop updating, and the customer is back to estimated billing until either the migration completes or the meter is replaced.

The Faster Switching programme — separate from the DCC migration but operationally linked — has reduced the standard switching time to five working days. Where a smart meter is operational and DCC-connected, the switch completes inside the five-day window with no impact on data quality. Where it is not, the switch still completes on time but data quality may be compromised for several weeks until the new supplier and the meter operator resolve the meter's state.

What the Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement programme does and does not change

Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement (MHHS) is Ofgem's programme to extend half-hourly settlement to all UK electricity customers, leveraging the data flowing from smart meters. Today, only customers with a measured maximum demand above 100 kW are settled half-hourly; everyone else is settled against a profile class that approximates their consumption shape but does not reflect actual half-hourly behaviour.

Under MHHS, every customer with a smart meter will be settled against their actual half-hourly consumption. The change is structurally significant for the supply industry — wholesale buying, demand forecasting and pass-through pricing all become more accurate — but should be largely invisible to most customers. The intended benefits at the customer level:

• More accurate billing for time-of-use tariffs. A customer on an EV-overnight tariff pays accurately for what they used in each half-hour window, rather than relying on a profile-class approximation.
• Stronger supplier signals to customers who can shift demand. Suppliers settled half-hourly have a direct commercial reason to design tariffs that reward time-shifted consumption.
• Better data for system planning. System operators see real consumption patterns rather than profiled approximations.

What MHHS does not change at the customer level: it does not force a smart-meter installation on customers who do not have one (those continue to be settled by profile class), and it does not by itself produce a price reduction — the savings flow indirectly through better-priced tariffs and reduced settlement-error costs.

For non-domestic customers above 100 kW, MHHS changes nothing: those supplies have been settled half-hourly for decades. For non-domestic customers below 100 kW with a smart or AMR meter, MHHS brings them into the same settlement regime as larger customers — operationally seamless from the customer side, but it does mean that supplier pricing accuracy on these supplies should improve.

Smart meters in business premises

For business customers, the rollout picture is more fragmented than for domestic customers and the operational implications differ:

• Microbusinesses (under 10 employees, turnover under €2m, or under 100,000 kWh electricity / 293,000 kWh gas) are within the scope of the broader rollout and most should now have either a smart meter or an AMR meter installed. Where the meter is still traditional, the supplier should be offering a smart upgrade as a matter of routine.
• Profile-class non-half-hourly business customers above the microbusiness thresholds are typically being moved to AMR meters via supplier-driven programmes; the upgrade is not strictly mandatory but is becoming standard for new contracts and renewals.
• Half-hourly customers have always had advanced metering — the half-hourly meter, owned and maintained by a Meter Operator, with data collected and aggregated by a separate DC/DA service. The smart-meter rollout does not affect HH supplies directly.

For multi-site business portfolios, the meter mix is often inconsistent — some sites smart, some AMR, some traditional — and one of the routine procurement steps is to bring the meter fleet onto a consistent basis so that supplier-side data quality is uniform across the portfolio. Where the meter mix is inconsistent, supplier pricing tends to be defensive on the lower-data sites, and procurement value is left on the table.

Tariff implications of having a working smart meter

The tariff landscape that opens up when you have a working smart meter is materially different from what is available on a traditional meter:

• Time-of-use tariffs — peak/off-peak pricing that rewards shifting consumption away from the system peak. Standard offering from most major suppliers in 2026.
• EV-specific tariffs — cheap overnight windows for EV charging. Octopus Go, EDF GoElectric, OVO Charge Anytime and equivalents from other suppliers.
• Heat-pump-friendly tariffs — designed for the load profile of an air-source heat pump, with cheap windows aligned to typical heat-pump operation. Cosy Octopus and equivalents.
• Wholesale-tracking tariffs — daily or half-hourly unit rates that follow the wholesale market. Octopus Tracker, Octopus Agile and equivalents. Higher engagement required, often lower average cost.

For most customers, a fixed or capped variable tariff remains the right starting point — the engagement required by tracker and agile tariffs is real, and the saving against a well-priced fixed deal is typically a few per cent rather than transformational. But for households or businesses with EVs, batteries, heat pumps or other shiftable load, the smart-meter-enabled tariffs can produce material savings. None of them is available on a traditional meter or a smart meter operating in dumb mode.

Common installation issues and what to do about them

Five operational issues come up repeatedly in practice:

• The meter is installed but not communicating. Symptoms: the in-home display does not update, the supplier app shows manual reads or estimates only. Cause: usually a comms-hub fault or a poor signal at the meter location. Fix: contact the supplier; they should arrange a free engineer visit to replace the comms hub or relocate the meter.
• The meter is communicating but the supplier is not using the reads. Symptoms: the bill shows estimated reads despite smart capability. Cause: settings issue at the supplier end, often after a switch. Fix: contact the supplier and request a switch to smart billing; quote the meter serial number and the dates of the available smart reads.
• The meter went dumb after a switch. Symptoms: smart functionality stopped at the switch. Cause: SMETS1 meter not migrated to the DCC, or DCC migration unsuccessful. Fix: contact the new supplier and request DCC re-commissioning or a free SMETS2 upgrade.
• The in-home display stopped working. Symptoms: the display is blank or shows no current reads. Cause: usually a battery or signal issue with the display itself rather than the meter. Fix: contact the supplier; the IHD is supplied free with the smart meter and should be replaced free where it is faulty.
• The bill shows wildly higher consumption than expected after smart installation. Symptoms: the first smart-billed period jumps materially above the previous estimated-billed periods. Cause: usually accurate measurement is now happening for the first time, and previous estimates were too low. Fix: review the previous estimated period for under-billing; back-billing protections apply if the underbilling exceeds twelve months and the customer is microbusiness or domestic.

The questions to ask your supplier

If you are entering or renewing a contract, six questions surface the smart-meter and MHHS readiness picture cleanly:

1. What meter is currently installed at every site in scope of this contract? Specifically: traditional, SMETS1, SMETS2, AMR or HH; and for SMETS1, has it been migrated to the DCC.
2. For each smart or AMR meter, when was the last successful automated read received? The supplier should be able to confirm this date in writing.
3. Where the meter is not currently smart, what is the timeline and process to install one? Timing varies materially by supplier and region.
4. Does this contract include a time-of-use tariff or wholesale-linked element that requires smart capability? If yes, the supplier should not be offering the contract on a meter that is not smart-operational.
5. How will MHHS settlement affect the contract during its term? Under MHHS, profile-class supplies migrate to half-hourly settlement; the contract should specify how this transition is handled and whether any pricing change is triggered.
6. What is the supplier's process if the meter loses comms during the contract term? A clear written process protects the customer from estimated-bill drift and from disputes at the contract end.

A six-line action checklist

1. For every meter in your portfolio, confirm in writing the current meter type and DCC status. Your supplier holds the data.
2. Where any meter is sending estimated reads despite smart capability, raise a smart-billing-restoration request with the supplier and follow up in writing.
3. Where any SMETS1 meter is operating in dumb mode after a switch, request DCC migration or a free SMETS2 upgrade.
4. For any time-of-use, EV, heat-pump or wholesale-linked tariff, confirm meter operational status before signing — not after.
5. For multi-site portfolios, bring the meter fleet onto a consistent smart or AMR basis at the next renewal cycle to remove defensive pricing on data-poor sites.
6. Where the smart meter is causing operational problems that the supplier is not resolving inside eight weeks, escalate to the Energy Ombudsman with the file built — meter serial, complaint reference, dates and a clear statement of the licence-condition position.

If you would like a written audit of the meter and contract position across your sites — including the smart-meter operational status, the contract terms, the tariff implications and the procurement value of standardising the meter fleet — send through a recent bill from each site and we will return findings inside 48 working hours. The audit is free; the recoverable savings are yours to keep. Start your free portfolio audit today.