The British public’s perception of the UK smart metering initiative: Threats and opportunities

Consumer acceptance of smart meters remains crucial in achieving the potential carbon emission reductions offered by advanced metering infrastructures. Given this, the present research used deliberative focus groups to examine what is needed to secure acceptance and engagement from domestic consumers with services, products and ‘offers’ in smarter power systems. Our findings suggest that consumers are able to identify not just threats relating to smart metering initiatives but opportunities as well. In particular, our focus group participants responded positively to the idea of an automated system that could be used to achieve energy savings in combination with time-of-use tariffs. We conclude by outlining suggestions for policy recommendations that may help consumer acceptance of smart meter enabled services be more readily achieved. • We examine consumer acceptance of smart metering initiatives using focus groups. • Consumers perceive both threats and opportunities in smart metering initiatives. • Threats include; autonomy issues, privacy concerns and mistrust of suppliers. • Opportunities include: accurate billing and enablement of future ICT services. • Consumers responded positively to the idea of automated energy management.