Hello,
I have an old British Gas electricity smart meter installed in a cabinet and would appreciate some advice as to whether we have enough space for a SMETS2 smart meter. Hopefully the attached photo will show the current setup.
T

he cabinet is near the ceiling and the bottom of the cabinet is 2.25m from the floor (we receive our electricity supply from an overhead cable).
Many thanks for any advice.
Best answer by Tim_OVO
Updated on 12/03/21: Are you sure your Landis + Gyr meter is S1? The info in this update box is taken from our topic guide on Landis+Gyr E470 smart meters, here. We made this guide as some E470 smart meters are S1, and some are S2.
What does a SMETS1 Landis+Gyr E470 look like?
Here’s an example of one installed by British Gas/Centrica:

The most common characteristics of the SMETS1 versions are the fact they have a black border surrounding the display, and will often have a separate Comms Hub next to the meter, such as the Trilliant SEAP-2001-V. If you have one of these, your gas meter will also be SMETS1 and is probably a Landis+Gyr G370.
If I’ve got one of these, can I switch supplier without breaking it?
Unfortunately, I’ve got a bit of bad news there. To get the best info, I need to call in help from SmartMe, one of the resources we use here a lot.
While the plan is to upgrade as many SMETS1 smart meters as possible to SMETS2 firmware and migrate them to the National Smart Meter Network via the Data Communications Company (DCC), it’s running a bit behind schedule at the time of writing.
The latest details we have are that S1 L+G meters are planned to be migrated around Autumn to Winter 2021, but this may still change. If you’ve change supplier in the meantime and your meter went dumb, it should recover after this process completes.
I’m with British Gas right now and they installed the meter, is that a problem?
I’m really sorry to say that due to the fact British Gas/Centrica are using their own proprietary WAN that no other supplier can access, if you switch away from them now, your smart meter will almost certainly go dumb temporarily. Don’t let this put you off though! It simply means you’ll just have to put manual readings in for a bit.
If the meters were installed by another supplier and are still SMETS1, they might still work fine with a few suppliers. Please check first!
All of these meters are being included in the migration. Once DCC takes over control, British Gas won’t be involved anymore and your meters will work fine everywhere.
Will these meters work with OVO?
Not yet, but they will soon! OVO chose to go with Secure branded meters rather than L+G back in the SMETS1 days, so the only SMETS1 meters OVO can support are those from Secure. However, OVO has got full support for all SMETS2 meters and SMETS1 meters from any brand that have been upgraded to SMETS2 and migrated to DCC. My own Aclara SGM1311 (guide here) that I like to call Raichu is one such meter.
Feel free to switch to OVO anyway if you wish. Once the meter starts working, you’ll be notified.
What does a SMETS2 Landis+Gyr E470 look like?
Good question! Here’s an example of one that was originally installed by EDF:

Pretty much all SMETS2 L+G E470 meters look a bit like this one, but might not have the supplier stickers. They never have a black border around the display, and will always have one green and one grey button - but might not be in the same places.
If you have one of these meters, the exact gas meter you have may vary.
Will these meters work with any supplier?
Yup! As the SMETS2 variant, these ones work freely with any supplier, even if you’re no longer with the one that installed the meters.
Hi
Here is the schedule for enrolment to DCC (taken from this FAQ), your British Gas smart meters are in the bottom category, with a start date of Q3 2021.
I’ve been advised OVO will attempt to migrate as many as we can, and if we fail, proceed to fit our S2 meters.
What timescales to expect for my meters to be enrolled?
This table shows the expected delivery date depending on the Meter Manufacturer.
Meter Manufacturer | MSN format | Fuel | Expected migration to Smart |
Secure | YYP | Electric | Expected start November 2020 running to July 2021 |
G4P | Gas | ||
Elster | YYK | Electric | Already started. Planned completion March 2021 |
G4K | Gas | ||
Aclara | YYM | Electric | Already started. Planned completion March 2021 |
G4F | Gas | ||
Itron | YYS | Electric | Estimated start date Q3 2021 |
G4 | Gas | ||
L+G | YYL | Electric | Estimated start date Q3 2021 |
ZYYQ | Electric | ||
ZYYN | Electric | ||
E6S | Gas |