ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - Germany's largest energy company, Eon, has advocated for a requirement obliging grid operators to equip all households with smart electricity meters. "If I had one wish, it would be a mandatory rollout of smart meters in Germany," said Eon Chief Sales Officer Marc Spieker in an interview with the dpa news agency and the financial news agency dpa-AFX in Essen. Eon is the country's largest distribution grid operator.

Smart meters measure a household's electricity consumption every 15 minutes and transmit the data to grid operators and energy suppliers. With such intelligent metering systems, households can see exactly how much electricity they have used at different times of the day. If consumers have signed up for a special electricity tariff, they can, for example, run a washing machine or charge an electric car during periods of abundant solar and wind energy, when electricity is cheaper. At the same time, grid operators can use the data to better manage their networks.

So far, grid operators are only required to retrofit private customers under certain conditions, such as when a household has a heat pump or a larger solar power system installed. As a result, Germany lags far behind in Europe when it comes to retrofitting: while the smart meter penetration rate in many countries is already at 80 percent or higher, in Germany it was just under 4 percent at the end of September 2025—equivalent to just over two million devices.

Sanctions Demanded for Slow Grid Operators

For Eon board member Spieker, this is not enough: "This is going too slowly and it's far too lax. The fact that grid operators who are still not making progress are not simply sanctioned is not acceptable," Spieker said. For any future mandatory smart meter rollout, grid operators that are too slow should lose the right to replace meters in their network area after one year. Other companies could then take over. By the end of 2025, Eon had installed almost one million devices in Germany, according to its own figures.

Eon: Customers Benefit from Smart Meters

Spieker sees many advantages to smart meters. "Where we can tell our customers their consumption in 15-minute intervals, we can offer them completely different solutions." For example, in the UK there is a specific tariff where electricity costs more in the late afternoon and less at other times. Customers have adapted to this and now save an average of five to ten euros per month. "That is highly relevant for many customers. And it encourages people to shift their consumption sensibly."

Spieker cited another example: flexible charging tariffs for electric cars. "We can also offer optimization if a household has a photovoltaic system." If there is an energy storage system, he said, it is possible to show customers all the things they could do with it.

On the Eon board, Spieker is responsible for both the business with private and larger customers. This includes Eon's major projects with industry and municipalities, such as the development of heating networks.

While there is no retrofit obligation for all customers in Germany, since early 2025 every household has the right to request a smart meter. The locally responsible grid operator then has four months to install it. The costs for a voluntary installation are borne by the consumers. For rental properties, landlords must be asked for permission beforehand.

Eon operates about one third of Germany's electricity distribution grid

Eon is Germany's largest energy supplier, with twelve million electricity and two million gas contracts in the country. Through numerous subsidiaries, the company is also the largest electricity distribution grid operator in Germany, accounting for about one third of the network length./lew/tob/DP/mis