During the second quarter of 2020, 850,000 less domestic smart meters were installed in Britain than in Q1 due to COVID-19.
Between April and June, just 135,000 smart meters were installed in homes as suppliers paused operations due to the lockdown.
In the non-domestic sector, just 2,000 smart and advanced meters were installed during the period, 20,000 less than in the first three months of the year.
As of 30 June 2020, the number of smart and advanced meters in homes and small businesses was 21.5 million according to the new figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Of these, 17.4 million are in smart mode or advanced meters.
“The number of smart meters operating in smart mode at the end of Q2 2020 is almost unchanged from the previous quarter (an increase of 0.4%),” according to BEIS.
“This is expected due to low levels of new installations as energy suppliers focused on emergency metering work due to the disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19).”
In July, the number of smart meters installed jumped by 120% compared to June as installations restarted at pace.
Suppliers began to tentatively restart their installation programmes in June, after they were paused in March to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
Prior to this pause, the rollout had already faced a number of challenges with half of suppliers have failing to reach their smart meter installation milestones in 2019, including more than 10% outside of the tolerance allowed.