In a consultation published today the Government sets out that its preferred option for the roll out of smart meters will involve a central agency being appointed to relay data collected from smart meters to suppliers. This would have several advantages, for example, it would help competition as it means the communication with all smart meters would use a common format allowing customers to switch easily between suppliers.

Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem Chief Executive, said: 'Ofgem fully supports a national roll-out of smart meters as they have great potential to encourage both domestic and business customers to reduce their energy use. They will also improve the accuracy of bills by eliminating the need for estimates.'

Ofgem welcomes the Government's consultation on the appropriate approach for introducing smart meters for small businesses. The Government has already set down licence conditions from this April for suppliers to fit advanced electricity and gas meters in 200,000 business premises by 2014.

Ofgem is the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets, which supports the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, the regulator of the gas and electricity industries in Great Britain. The Authority's powers and duties are largely provided for in statute, principally the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989, the Utilities Act 2000, the Competition Act 1998, the Enterprise Act 2002, the Energy Act 2004 as well as arising from directly effective European Community legislation.

Related links to this article:
Department of Energy and Climate Change [1]

The consultation is open to the public from today and will run to 24 July 2009. Further information on how to take part can be found at this link [2]