Energy Guides

What’s the difference between a smart meter and an electricity monitor?

By Hazel Cottrell hazel.cottrell@consumerchoices.co.uk

Smart meters are often confused with electricity monitors, but the truth is they are quite different. This guide outlines the differences… (12/2/10)

If you’ve been hearing a lot about smart meters and electricity monitors and have struggled to tell the difference, it’s no surprise.

Both have featured prominently in the news recently and confusingly many companies have been marketing their electricity monitors as ‘smart’.

This guide is designed to clear up the differences between smart meters and electricity monitors and help you choose the right device to save money on your energy bills.

• What is an electricity monitor?
• What is a smart meter?
• What’s the difference between a smart meter and an electricity monitor?
• Which should I get?

What is an electricity monitor?

An electricity monitor is a hand-held device that shows you how much electricity you are using in real-time. This is usually displayed in units (kWh), cost (pounds) and emissions (CO2).

It comes with a sensor, which attaches to a wire at your electricity meter and measures the electricity current flowing through the wire, and a transmitter that send this information to your hand-held display unit.

Using an electricity monitor can help you keep an eye the electricity you are using and see how making changes to your behaviour affects it. It is hoped that by seeing how much electricity you are using, you will find ways to reduce your usage and so cut your bills.

Read our guide to electricity monitors

What is a smart meter?

A smart meter is an electronic gas and electricity meter which accurately measures your energy usage and is able to send and receive information, to and from your energy supplier. This means that suppliers can check and record your energy use remotely, so there is no need for estimated bills or meter readings.

The government hopes to have smart meters in every home by 2020 and has said that energy suppliers will pay for their roll-out, but the plans for this have not yet been finalised.

The government has said that smart meters will come with standalone visual display units (like energy monitors), which will help consumers monitor and reduce their energy usage, but smart meters will offer many more additional benefits too.

For example, smart meters will make it easier for consumers to export their own microgenerated electricity to the grid, and they pave the way for new “smart” appliances which can be set only to run when energy is at its cheapest.

Read our guide to smart meters

What’s the difference between a smart meter and an electricity monitor?

There are similarities between electricity monitors and the visual displays that smart meters will come with – both you how much electricity you are currently using and so should help you monitor and reduce your energy consumption.

However, there are some crucial differences between smart meters and electricity monitors, which are outlined in the table below:

Which should I get?

The government hopes to have a smart meter in every home by 2020, so we should all see the benefits of smart meters eventually. However, the roll-out is still in the planning stages and you could be waiting up to a decade to get a smart meter this way.

If you want to start monitoring you energy usage now, you have a couple of options.

If you live in the Midlands or East Midlands you could get a smart meter by switching to First:utility. It’s offering a free smart meter to all customers who sign up to its Smart tariff. First:utility is the only supplier that is currently installing real smart meters, and it’s only installing them in these two distribution areas.

If you live elsewhere, unfortunately you can’t get a smart meter at the moment, but wherever you live you could get an electricity monitor.

A number of energy suppliers are offering free electricity monitors for customers who sign up to certain tariffs – for example the British Gas EnergySmart tariff. Or alternatively you can buy an energy monitor for around £30-50 from retailers like Tesco or Amazon.