This presentation explores the potential impact of smart meters on the retail market, and assessed the issue from four perspectives, including technology, Government/regulators, customers and suppliers. Firstly, as the mass deployment of smart meters gathers pace, the challenges of delivering even the basic functionality of smart meters are being underplayed. Secondly, in order to recover the costs of the UK Government’s deployment plan, energy tariffs may need to be raised. FTI-CL Energy expert, Alaric Marsden argued the importance of minimising the tariff rise and monitoring roll-out costs. Thirdly, whilst customer needs are changing rapidly, smart metering must first ‘do no harm’. And lastly, energy companies face a range of opportunities and risks from smart metering as new entrants who are better able to commercialise smart data disintermediate them and customers potentially face spiraling costs without seeing enough of the benefits.