The installation of smart meters into all 30 million UK homes have been delayed by more than a year with the first meters unlikely to be installed until Autumn 2015, and all 30 million meters until 2020.

The delays to the £11-12 billion project has been caused by industry needing more time for designing, building, and testing the systems which will enable the energy companies to communicate with the gas and electricity meters – for example to get daily accurate meter readings for all of their customers.

The huge costs of the project should be more than offset in the savings from not needing to employ people to read meters, and deal with customer complaints relating to estimated bills. Smart meters should help consumers understand their power usage and therefore take steps to reduce it.