Alliance & General Leasing are working with manufacturers and suppliers to help implement the forthcoming roll out of Government policy to achieve full compliance by 2020.

Smart meters in home and business will sit at the interface between energy supply and demand, helping to modernise the energy industry. Smart meters are a critical part of the platform for the development of a smart grid and demand-side measures. New expected sources of demand such as electric vehicles or heat pumps and greater use of renewable generation will bring new demand on networks. Smart meters will support more efficient use of electricity infrastructure by providing better information and improving communication between consumers, electricity suppliers and network companies. Smart meters will enable accurate metering of the electricity exported to the grid by households who have installed microgeneration technologies, such as solar panels. Along with the development of smart grids they will also enable better network management for such decentralised energy production.

Government wants everyhome in Britain to have their old gas and electricity meters replaced by smart meters by 2020. Some energy suppliers are already rolling out the new technology and hundreds of thousands have already been installed.

Government sees the rollout of this new technology as an important way to give consumers more control over how much energy they use.