A new study has shown that smart meters have a more significant impact on energy consumption than the government previously anticipated.

Research conducted by the Behavioural Insights Team on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero aimed to understand the energy savings attributed to the widespread installation of smart meters.

The pooled estimates from the study indicate that the consumption reduction achieved by smart meters is even greater than initially predicted.

The data reveals a decrease of 3.43% for electricity and 2.97% for gas, surpassing the estimates of -3% and -2.2% respectively, based on the evidence available before this review.

To arrive at these findings, suppliers examined the energy consumption of customers with smart meters and compared it to that of traditional-meter users.

The analysis focused on 12 months after the installation of smart meters, with a subset of suppliers also examining longer-term impacts.