The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has introduced a national smart meter rollout. A smart meter records your electricity use throughout the day and sends readings to your energy retailer. This means no more manual meter reads.
The aim is for all homes and small businesses — including apartments and other shared buildings — to have a smart meter by 2030. This rollout covers New South Wales, Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory, and South Australia.
Energy retailers are responsible for upgrading meters to smart meters as part of the coordinated rollout. For more information visit Accelerating smart meter deployment | AEMC or contact your retailer.
What Is a Smart Meter?
Smart meters are the most current technology for reading your electricity usage. They record your electricity use throughout the day and send your readings to your energy retailer, meaning no more manual meter reads. They are also a step towards getting new technologies like solar panels and batteries and give you more options to manage your costs.
Do I need to do anything now?
No. Most of us won’t need to take any action to get a smart meter. As part of the national rollout, your energy retailer will contact you at least a week before the smart meter is installed.
Will Essential Energy install my smart meter?
No. Smart meter installation is managed by your energy retailer.
What are some of the benefits of Smart Meters?
- Accurate billing – Smart meters reduce the need for estimated bills.
- Usage insights – Customers can monitor energy use in real time and make informed decisions.
- Faster fault detection – Helps identify outages and restore power more quickly. Supports modern renewable energy tech – Smart meters are compatible with solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles.
- Remote readings – In most cases, there's no need to coordinate access to your meter.
Legacy Meters
In some cases, a home or business may still have an historic Essential Energy meter also known as a legacy meter. Essential Energy remains responsible for any legacy meters, installed by us before the Power of Choice change came into effect. Legacy meters require a manual reading by our contractors and typically feature Essential Energy branding.
Essential Energy remains responsible for these legacy meters until they are replaced as part of the broader smart meter rollout.
To ensure fairness and efficiency across our network, the Legacy Meter Replacement Program (LMRP) schedules upgrades based on established meter reading routes. Each electricity connection point has a unique National Metering Identifier (NMI), which identifies your electricity supply. NMIs help us plan and track meter replacements, ensuring the rollout is distributed evenly across rural, semi-rural, and town locations.
The rollout is delivered in quarterly batches, with meter reading routes grouped into clusters to streamline work and minimise disruption. Priority is given to regional and hard-to-access locations, including boat-access and ladder-required sites.
Multiple Meters at One Property
In some apartment buildings, unit blocks, or multi-tenant sites, several electricity meters may be connected to the same power supply. To minimise disruption, we work with energy retailers to coordinate the replacement of all meters at the property during a single planned outage wherever possible.
If your property has multiple meters connected to a shared supply, your energy retailer will contact you with details about the upgrade and any planned outages.
Need more information?
For questions about your meter upgrade, contact your energy retailer. You can also visit the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) for more details about the smart meter rollout.
