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National Smart Meter Rollout
National Smart Meter Rollout
Learn more about the progress of smart meter rollout and metering regulatory changes.

By 2030 all existing legacy meters in Australia should be replaced by smart meters. This has been decided by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC).

The rollout of smart meters will begin in December 2025 and affect over 1 million Ausgrid customers.

Ausgrid is one of the electricity industry participants and regulators who have been appointed by AEMC to take on a key role in the development, execution and overall success of the smart meter rollout.

Customer benefits with a smart meter: 

More accurate bills
No estimates, you’ll get increased ability to financial plan and keep track of costs.
Remote meter reading
Manual meter reading can be a burden, especially on vulnerable customers due to e.g. health or mobility issues.
Real life data
This could help you connect your personal actions with reduction of electricity consumption and costs.
Improved data quality
Provides more reliable and timely data, helping retailers and networks better manage supply.
Supports renewable energy
Supports transition to a net-zero energy system by better integration of solar battery and EV
Flat transition retail tariffs
For two years when a customer stays with the same retailer.

Ausgrid Legacy Meter Replacement Plan  

The AEMC identified a number of electricity industry participants and the key roles that they would play to ensure that all existing legacy meters are replaced with smart meters in a timely, cost-effective, fair, and safe way.

Based on the guiding principles from AEMC, Ausgrid have developed a Legacy Meter Replacement Plan (LMRP). In this plan, we: 

  • Replace meters following the meter reading route
  • Spread the rollout evenly across all meter reading routes and locations in the Ausgrid network
  • Group nearby meter reading routes together to work on them as clusters
  • Break each year of the rollout into quarterly batches to improve efficiency
  • Focus on rural areas in the Hunter region in year one (about 30,000 meters will be replaced)
  • Include boat-access and ladder-required routes in the first two years
  • Target specific suburbs where ageing network assets which control hot water systems are due to be decommissioned
  • Target a few specific suburbs in year one where the network is being reconfigured

One In All In

Replacing meters in multi-residential buildings

Ausgrid expects around 119,000 multi-residential sites to have meters replaced as part of the Smart Meter Rollout. Most of these buildings will have shared meter boards, with fuses shared between multiple units.

Because of this, replacing meters at these sites often means doing one meter at a time, which lead to multiple power outages. For example, if there are 10 meters, customers could experience up to 10 separate outages.

To make this process more efficient, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has introduced a new approach called ‘One In All In’ (OIAI). With OIAI, Ausgrid will coordinate with all retailers and their metering teams to replace all meters at the same time, during a single outage. This means less disruption for customers, and a faster, more cost-effective rollout.

Find out more about the rollout

Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC): Accelerating smart meter deployment

Optimising your smart meter usage

Learn more about how to make the most out of your smart meter.