Smart meters in NSW: what actually happens, network by network

Short version: your electricity retailer arranges the swap, not your network, you get at least four business days' notice, the power is off for around an hour, and it costs you nothing upfront under the national rollout. Every remaining meter in the country is due to be a smart meter by 2030, so it is a question of when, not if. This page is the plain version of what happens, which of the three NSW networks you sit on, and the handful of things worth doing before and after the installer turns up.

Why this page exists. Search "smart meter NSW" and you get government pages, your distributor, and your retailer, all of them accurate and none of them written by someone who has stood in front of a meter box with a homeowner. That gap is real enough that Google currently pulls answers out of Facebook community groups. This is our attempt at the version a neighbour who does this for a living would give you.

First, work out which network you are on

NSW has three electricity distribution networks. The network owns the poles, the wires and the meter; your retailer is the company that sends you the bill. Almost everything about the rollout is arranged by the retailer, which is the single most common point of confusion, so it is worth knowing which is which before you ring anyone.

The reliable way to find your network is your electricity bill. It is named on there, usually near your supply address or your NMI (the long number that identifies your connection point). Do not go by postcode alone: the boundaries follow streets and substations, not postcodes, and plenty of postcodes straddle two networks.

Your postcode

NSW postcodes. Where one straddles two networks we say so and name the suburbs rather than guessing, and we will tell you when you are close to a boundary.

Or pick a network directly:

Ausgrid

Roughly: Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter. It is the biggest of the three by customer count, with about 1.8 million connections.

What it means for you: you are in the densest part of the rollout, which usually means installers are working a suburb at a time rather than making single trips. If you are in an apartment or a townhouse block with a shared meter room, the meters there should be done as a group rather than one at a time, so expect a building-wide notice rather than a personal one.

Who to ring: your retailer for anything about the appointment, the notice or your plan. Ausgrid on 13 13 88 for the physical supply, a fault, an outage, or life support registration.

Endeavour Energy

Roughly: greater western Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, the Illawarra, the South Coast and the Central West. Endeavour describes its patch as serving about 2.8 million people.

What it means for you: a wide mix of housing, from new estates where the meter is already smart to older housing stock where the meter box is the original one. If your house was built after 2017, or you have solar, there is a good chance you already have a smart meter and this whole thing has already happened to you.

Who to ring: your retailer for the appointment and your plan. Endeavour on 13 10 03 for supply faults, outages and life support registration.

Essential Energy

Roughly: most of regional and rural NSW. Essential covers about 95% of the state by land area, which is a very different job from the metro networks.

What it means for you: travel time is the constraint, so installers tend to work an area in a batch and the window you are given matters more than it does in the city. If your meter box is behind a locked gate, up a long driveway, or in a paddock with stock in it, sort out access before the day rather than on it. A wasted trip out here means a long wait for the next one.

Who to ring: your retailer for the appointment and your plan. Essential Energy on 13 20 80 for supply faults, outages and life support registration.

What actually happens on the day

The notice. Your retailer contacts you by letter, text or email at least four business days beforehand, naming a five business day window when the work will happen. You usually do not get a specific hour.
Access. If the meter box is safe and easy to reach, you do not need to be home. If it is locked, blocked, or the dog is in the yard, you do, or the visit gets rescheduled.
The swap. The installer turns your electricity off, takes the old meter out, puts the new one in and turns you back on. Plan for the power being off for up to an hour.
Identity. You are entitled to ask for photo ID. A genuine installer will never ask you for a payment or for personal details on the doorstep. If someone does, that is not the rollout.
If they find a problem. If the meter board or the wiring is not in a state they can safely work on, the job stops and they notify your retailer, who comes back to you about options. This is the one branch that can cost you money, because fixing your own switchboard is your responsibility, not the network's.

The five minutes of prep that are actually worth doing

If anyone at the address is on life support, register it. That registration goes through your retailer and your network, and it exists so a planned interruption is handled differently. Do it well before the window, not during it.
Clear the path to the meter box. Unlock the gate, move the bins, put the dog inside for the window.
Shut down anything that hates losing power. Desktop machines, a home server, an aquarium pump, a NAS. If you run a local smart home, this is the day the box in the cupboard reboots hard, so shut it down properly rather than letting the power drop out from under it.
Photograph the old meter's reading. Thirty seconds with your phone. It is the only record you will have of the number the old meter finished on, and it settles any argument about the changeover read without a phone call.

After the swap: what to check

The meter itself does not set your prices. It is a measuring device: the difference is that it records your usage across the day and sends the reads in, instead of someone walking up to your fence once a quarter. What that changes is the quality of the information, and what your plan is allowed to do with it.

So when the first bill after the swap arrives, do three things:

Check what tariff the bill says you are on. It is usually printed on the bill near the usage charges. Whatever it says, write it down, because that is your baseline.
Compare it to the bill before the swap. Same tariff name, or a different one? Same rate structure, or several rates at different times of day?
Check the estimates. You may still see very short estimated periods after the swap if the meter has a temporary problem sending its reads. That is not the old quarterly estimate, and it does not get corrected into a surprise later.

If the structure has changed, or you are trying to work out whether a time-based plan actually suits your household, the arithmetic is on our time of use tariff page, which sets out how the windows and the rates work.

Your consent right, and its four edges

If your retailer replaced your meter on or after 1 December 2025, it cannot move you off a flat rate onto a time-of-use or demand tariff for two years without your explicit informed consent. That protection applies in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, and only for as long as you stay with the retailer that installed the meter.

After two years your retailer can change your tariff structure without your consent, but it must give you at least 30 business days' notice and show what your last 12 months would have cost under the new structure. If your meter was swapped before 1 December 2025, or you have since switched retailers, this protection may not apply to you.

Those edges matter more than the headline, so to be blunt about who is not covered:

Swapped before 1 December 2025? The consent rule does not reach back. Plenty of meters went in ahead of it.
Changed retailers since? The obligation sits with the retailer that installed the meter. Move, and it does not follow you.
Past the two years? Notice and a comparison, not consent.
Outside those five states? Different rules apply in Victoria, WA and the NT.

The regulator publishes its own plain version of this, and it is worth reading in its own words: consumer rights and smart meters. If your structure changed and you do not remember agreeing to it, put that to your retailer, and take it to the Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW, which is free, if the answer does not satisfy you.

Where this comes from

The sources behind the above, so you can check any of it yourself rather than take our word for it:

NSW Government, smart meter rollout, for the notice periods, the installation process, cost and scope of the national rollout. Checked 14 August 2026.
Australian Energy Regulator, consumer rights and smart meters, for the two-year consent protection and what happens after it. The rule behind it is the National Energy Retail Amendment (Accelerating smart meter deployment) Rule 2024 No. 6, made by the Australian Energy Market Commission on 28 November 2024, with the consent provisions commencing 1 December 2025.
Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy, the three NSW distribution networks, for network areas and life support registration.
Energy Made Easy, the government plan comparison site, and EWON, the free NSW energy ombudsman.

Questions people ask

Do I have to get a smart meter in NSW?

Yes, and the deadline is 2030: every remaining meter in Australia is due to be a smart meter by then, and you cannot opt out of a new meter under the national rollout. Your electricity retailer arranges the swap, not your network, and there is no upfront cost to you under that rollout.

How much notice do I get before the meter is installed?

At least four business days. Your retailer sends a letter, text or email naming a five business day window in which the work will be done. The exact hour is not usually promised. If you have timing you cannot move, ring the retailer and ask, because they set the schedule.

How long is my power off during a smart meter swap?

One hour is the outside figure, and it is usually less. The installer switches your electricity off to take the old meter out and put the new one in, and the whole visit normally runs about an hour. Anything that must not lose power, a home office or medical equipment, plan for before the day.

Which electricity network am I on in NSW?

One of three: Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy or Essential Energy. Your network is named on your electricity bill. Ausgrid covers Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter. Endeavour covers greater western Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, the Illawarra and the South Coast. Essential Energy covers most of regional NSW.

Do I need to be home when the meter is swapped?

No, not if your meter box is safe and easy to reach, which is the one condition that matters. A locked gate, a dog in the yard or a blocked box gets the visit rescheduled, so clear the way. You can ask for photo ID, and the installer will never ask you for payment or personal details.

Does the rollout cover my gas and water meters?

Only one meter type is in scope: electricity. The national rollout does not touch your gas or water meters, which keep working exactly as they do now and are still read by hand when a read is needed. If anyone tells you a gas meter must change under this rollout, that is wrong.

I rent. Do I still get a smart meter?

Yes, and one detail surprises people: if the electricity account is in your name, your retailer contacts you directly rather than the owner or the agent. You get the same notice period and the same no-upfront-cost swap as an owner. Let your landlord or agent know the date as a courtesy.

Can my retailer move me onto a time-of-use tariff after the swap?

Not for two years, if your meter was replaced on or after 1 December 2025: the retailer that installed it cannot move you from a flat rate to time-of-use without your explicit informed consent. After that it can, with 30 business days' notice and a costing of your last 12 months. Switching retailers ends it.

Who wrote this

Angus Lewington: Founder of Alien IT Solutions (ABN 32 385 519 280), which runs Smart Home Fix. Day to day that means Home Assistant rescues, smart home repair and getting household data into something a person can actually read. More at anguslewington.com.au.
Why we write about meters: Because a smart meter is the first time most households get their own interval data, and turning that into a dashboard you can act on is the work we do. We are not a retailer, we do not sell you electricity, and we get nothing from you switching plans.
How this page is maintained: Facts checked against the sources listed above on 14 August 2026. Rules, dates and network areas change, so if you spot something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.

Once the new meter is in, you have interval data for the first time, and almost nobody ever looks at it. We set up a home energy dashboard that shows your actual usage against the times your plan charges different rates, tells you whether the change cost you money, and automates the things worth shifting. See how the dashboard setup works.