A smarter plan? A policy comparison between Great Britain and Ireland's deployment strategies for rolling out new metering technologies

The Irish and British governments have recently mandated the replacement of domestic gas and electricity meters with smart meters. Their deployment strategies differ based on the extent to which deregulation of the gas and electricity market has been successful. A broad debate has been held on the various assumptions justifying the cost-benefit analyses and the permutations of these assumptions. What has been paid less attention is to what end is a smart meter being employed towards. A corollary research question is whether the deployment plan is targeting the correct sector.