Smart meters to become mandatory in UK

A new £9 billion scheme was announced Monday, a full three years after the Government intended to introduce the smart meters. The electronic smart meters read a household's electricity and gas consumption and send the accurate information to the household's energy provider. The idea behind the smart meters is that they will eliminate the need for someone to check energy levels- thus saving the energy companies money- and also quickly and accurately inform the consumer about energy overuse, saving the consumer money on energy bills, all while reducing overall energy use.

The smart meters are about the size of a small notebook, and are reportedly to cost about £340 per household. There are several different proposals as to how the smart meters will be managed, with the government's preferred method seeing the energy companies responsible for the installation and maintenance and a third party handling the actual energy data.

The Government believes the energy reduction would 'conservatively' save each household £4 a year, or about £100 million throughout the UK. The energy companies say they will be able to offer consumers cheaper energy due to the reduction of operating costs.