The United Kingdom smart meter rollout through an energy justice lens

The United Kingdom’s Smart Meter Implementation Programme (SMIP) creates the legal framework so that an in-home display unit and a smart gas and electricity meter can be installed in every household by the end of 2020. Intended to reduce household energy consumption, the SMIP is one of the world’s most complex smart meter rollouts. It is also proving to be a challenging one as a series of obstacles has characterised and potentially restricted implementation. This chapter first gives background to the most recent smart meter roll out developments in the UK and second, uses an energy justice framework to explore the emergent challenges under the titles of distributional justice, procedural justice and justice as recognition. Applying this framework to an analysis of the UK SMIP provides opportunities to accurately record, present and expose potential forthcoming injustices. In light of this, we offer a series of policy recommendations.