Smart Meters are coming

Australia’s electricity market is undergoing a significant transformation. By 2030, all households and small businesses in the NEM states will have their old 'accumulation' electricity meters replaced with smart meters, as mandated by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) through the Accelerating Smart Meter Deployment (ASMD) reforms.

What Is a Smart Meter?

Smart meters are digital devices that automatically record your electricity usage in near real-time and communicate this data directly to your energy provider. Unlike traditional meters, smart meters eliminate the need for manual readings and support two-way communication with the grid.

Why are smart meters important?

Smart meters enable the measurement of energy usage by time, which is a crucial enabler for all kinds of retail energy innovations.

Smart meters can, in theory, also provide consumers with real-time access to their energy usage information. This information facilitates energy services that help consumers optimise their energy use and save money on bills.

Some of the benefits include:

Faster network restoration times
Remote meter reads, avoiding the need for estimated bills, manual meter reads, and removing the potential for incorrect meter reads
Improved network visibility, assisting in network planning and additional safety benefits
Better integration of customers’ assets, including rooftop solar, storage and electric vehicles, and
Expanded access to a broader range of available tariffs.

Who Will Be Affected?

The smart meter upgrade applies to: Residential and Small to medium business properties in NSW, ACT, QLD, and SA

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Note Victoria has already completed a statewide smart meter rollout.

Overview of Current Smart Meters Installed

Jurisdiction	Number of smart meters	% Smart meters
ACT	93.344	40.27%
NSW	1,929,057	39.17%
QLD	1,285,299	42.63%
SA	488,325	46.49%
TAS	279,296	78.06%
VIC	3.247.638	99.12%

If you still have an older “basic” meter, your electricity retailer or their metering provider will contact you when it’s time to upgrade. If you already have a smart meter, no action is needed.

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Consumer safeguards

Following significant pushback on forced migration to demand tariffs, the AEMC has introduced a two-year explicit informed consent period, during which retailers must obtain explicit consent from customers to change their retail tariff structure after a smart meter is installed.

The customer's consent lasts for two years, after which the retailer can update the retail tariff without requiring explicit informed consent. However, the retailer must still provide 30 days’ notice and a historical bill estimate to the customer. This safeguard is a transitional rule and will be in effect from December 1, 2025, until May 31, 2031.

In addition, retailers must also provide smart meter customers with a flat tariff option in those jurisdictions that have adopted the measure through local state-based regulatory instruments.

In September 2024, Queensland adopted measures for electricity retailers to offer a flat tariff structure, making the rule effective in this jurisdiction.

What are the costs?

There are no upfront costs if your meter is being replaced as part of the national ASMD rollout.

Fees may apply if you request a meter upgrade outside of the scheduled rollout or if your meter site requires any additional electrical works such as switchboard upgrades or asbestos removal.

Rollout Timeline

The national rollout follows a staged schedule through the Legacy Meter Replacement Program (LMRP):

Date	Change
July 1, 2025	Accelerated rollout begins - retailers start replacing meters proactvely
December 1, 2025	New rules apply for installation processes and defect resolution
July 1, 2026	Retailers begin replacing all legacy meters
November 30, 2030	All basic and non-compliant meters must be replaced by this date

Installation: What To Expect

Advance Notification: Your retailer or metering provider will contact you before the installation.
Scheduling: An appointment will be proposed, typically within a few weeks
Brief Power Interruption: Installation may take 30 minutes to 2 hours, during which power will be temporarily shut off.
Post-Installation: Your new smart meter will begin recording data automatically—no action needed on your part.

Next Steps

In October 2024, the AEMC published a consultation paper on Energy Consumer Australia’s separate rule change request to improve real-time data access for customers. The final determination for this rule change is expected in August 2025.

Access to real-time data

Currently, accessing real-time consumption data from a smart meter is challenging for both consumers and third parties seeking to act on their behalf. This is mainly because negotiating access with metering service providers (MSPs), who control the data, can be difficult.

To address this, consumers and third parties often install their own digital meter readers or current transformers near the meter, which can be a hassle and an additional expense for consumers.

In principle, there is no reason why consumers should not be able to directly access the data from their own meter.

On 30 January 2025, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) published a directions paper proposing a framework to enable access to real-time data from the meter.

The paper proposes the following:

A definition for real-time data
A requirement for retailers to offer real-time data access to all customers upon request, with a once-off charge to consumers permissible for the first 15 years
A requirement for MSPs (Meter Service Providers) to enable a one-way stream of real-time data upon request in a manner that is interoperable and enables multi-party access
A requirement for the AER to publish the price of accessing real-time data for each retailer and MSP annually