Smart meters measure your electricity use every 5 or 30 minutes depending on the age of your meter and send readings to your electricity distributor each day. No visits from the meter reader.
Also called Advanced Metering Infrastructure or AMI, smart meters use radio frequency (RF) signals to send data over a wireless network to your distributor.
AusNet smart meter IDs start with a 4. You can find the meter number at the front of your electricity meter.
You can see your energy usage up to midnight last night on your distributor's website. AusNet customers can use the myHomeEnergy portal on our website.
Using too much energy? You can see usage peaks and turn off non-essential appliances.
We can identify power outages quickly using smart meters. So, we can get our crews out to investigate and restore power faster.
Seeing our customers data daily lets us identify potential safety issues straight away.
We can disconnect and reconnect your power remotely using a smart meter. So, it’s easier and cheaper for you to move house.
When you’re on a smart meter, we can quickly assess the condition of the network to make sure it will support solar panels and a battery. This will make your solar and battery application process faster and easier.
Once you have solar panels, your smart meter will show you how much energy you are feeding into the energy grid.
And best of all, moving to a smart meter is free. Yes, free. It takes around 45 minutes, you don’t have to be home, and you power will be off for no more than 45 minutes.
Smart meters transmit the same kind of radio frequency signals as mobile phones, Wi-Fi routers and baby monitors.
All smart meters in Australia must comply with the electromagnetic exposure limits developed by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).
According to ARPANSA, there is no established scientific evidence that the low-level RF EME exposure from smart meters causes any health effects.
At AusNet, safety is our number one priority and we’re committed to providing safe and reliable energy to our customers. For more information, see Our safety commitment.
We’re replacing the communications card in your smart meter with a new card.
This new card will make sharing data faster to improve how we communicate with your meter. This means fewer visits from us.
We don’t need to turn your power off, and you won’t lose electricity supply to your property. We’ll take less than 15 minutes, and you don’t even need to be there.
We need safe and unrestricted access to your electricity meter, so please make sure any obstacles between the street and your meter are removed, e.g. locked gates, overgrown plants or pets.
Talk to your electricity retailer about getting a smart meter, or options if you don't want one.
For details about the Australian Energy Market Commission's (AEMC) Power of Choice reforms, visit the AEMC website
More information relating to radio frequency and emissions, visit the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) website
More information about your rights as a consumer, visit the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) website