Advanced meters or smart meters

What are advanced/smart meters?

Smart meters are modern gas or electricity meters that automatically record consumption and communicate it. In the UK, they use a secure national network so suppliers can receive reads remotely, and households can see usage through an in-home display. Crucially, smart meters support two-way communication between the meter and the supplier, enabling features such as remote tariff updates and prepayment top-ups.

Advanced meters, often called AMR meters, are used predominantly in non-domestic settings. They record interval consumption and allow the meter operator or data collector to retrieve those reads without a site visit. Industry bodies describe advanced metering as equipment that stores electricity data for multiple time periods and provides remote access to that data, usually to a licensed party such as a meter operator. In practice, this means dependable interval reads that can be collected and validated by an independent agent, not only by your energy supplier.

Why businesses should choose advanced meters

For most organisations, advanced meters are the safer choice. They provide consistent, high-quality interval data that can be accessed directly by your chosen meter and data partners. That matters for energy reporting, compliance and fast decision-making when something goes wrong on site. Multiple UK energy specialists advise non-domestic customers to request advanced meters rather than domestic-grade smart meters, precisely because the business use case depends on robust interval data and service continuity.

Data quality is the headline reason. With advanced meters, interval reads are collected by specialist agents who validate performance and flag gaps quickly. The result is day-plus-one availability for most portfolios, which supports meaningful analysis and operational follow-up. For businesses with many meters or complex sites, reliability is far more critical than consumer features like in-home displays.

Another difference is control of data. Advanced meters allow you to nominate independent meter operators and data collectors, which keeps your metering service portable across supplier contracts. That separation reduces the risk of data disruption during supply switches and puts you in charge of the service levels and escalation paths you need.

Optimal sub-metering services, from installation to long-term support

Selecting the proper hardware is only half the job. To get the most from advanced meters, take a look at our sub-metering services that covers the full lifecycle:

• Pre-install survey and design to confirm meter type, communications options and safe installation windows for each site.
• Accredited installation and commissioning, including CT checks where applicable, communications testing and proof-of-data before the engineer leaves.
• Data collection and validation are performed daily, with automated gap detection, estimated read rules and fast fault triage.
• Alarms and exception management so your team hears about failures, persistent zero load, unusual night consumption or sudden spikes.
• Portfolio change control that keeps meters and MPANs aligned during site moves, refurbishments or supplier changes.
• Clear SLAs and support, including engineer callouts, remote diagnostics and monthly performance reporting that covers data completeness and timeliness.

These are the fundamentals that turn advanced meters into a dependable business control system rather than just a billing tool. Industry guidance consistently links business-ready metering with service continuity and day-plus-one data availability, both of which depend on the processes above.

Half-hourly data from advanced meters into EMMA AI

Once you have reliable half-hourly data, you can automate the value. Platforms such as EMMA AI connect to your metering feeds and analyse usage every 30 minutes across all sites. The software learns each building’s normal profile, flags waste, and sends targeted actions to the right person so issues are fixed quickly. Because advanced meters deliver validated interval reads, EMMA AI can spot out-of-hours baseload, plant that fails to shut down, and creeping increases that would be invisible on monthly bills.

Typical benefits include faster anomaly identification, simplified compliance reporting, and better prioritisation of energy projects. The key is a clean pipeline from meter to analytics. Advanced meters supply the dependable half-hourly data, your AMR partner ensures completeness and quality, and EMMA AI provides the insights and automated follow-up that convert data into savings.

So, advanced or smart?

If you are a household or a tiny business that wants accurate bills and access to time-of-use tariffs, a smart meter from your supplier is the simple choice. It is integrated into the national innovative network and supports consumer features that make sense at home.

If you are a business that needs reliable, portable, half-hourly data, the answer is advanced meters. They deliver higher service continuity, robust data collection, and independent control over your metering arrangements, which, in turn, unlock better analytics and measurable savings through platforms like EMMA AI. When you pair advanced meters with a well-run AMR service, you get the quality and speed of information that busy energy teams need to cut consumption and costs.

Bottom line: smart equals home, advanced equals business. Choose advanced meters for your sites, insist on a full-lifecycle AMR service, and feed those half-hourly reads straight into EMMA AI for continuous, automated improvement.