U.K. regulator Ofgem issued an update on smart meter installation by retail energy suppliers

"Energy suppliers are required to take all reasonable steps to roll out smart meters to all their domestic and small business customers by the end of 2020," Ofgem said

Noting various progress, Ofgem said, "It is clear that smart meters will need to continue to be installed beyond 2020. BEIS [Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy ] are considering the post-2020 policy and regulatory landscape for smart meters."

"At the end of January 2020, suppliers will be required to report on progress in 2019 in line with their licence requirements. We are, however, not expecting any large suppliers who submitted rollout plans to us this year to submit again in January 2020. Suppliers who were above the 250,000 customer threshold for the first time on 1 April 2019 will be required to submit a rollout plan in January 2020 which should cover the final year of the current rollout obligation. It is clear that smart meters will need to continue to be installed beyond 2020. BEIS are considering the post-2020 policy and regulatory landscape for smart meters," Ofgem said

Ofgem also reported that, in this year’s rollout plan submissions, some suppliers indicated that they would be continuing to install some SMETS1 meters after the SMETS1 end-date of 5 December 2018 for credit meters and 15 March 2019 for pre-payment meters. Any SMETS1 meters installed after the end-dates, or outside the allowed derogations, will not count towards a supplier’s milestones or 2020 targets. Where a supplier decides to proceed with a SMETS1 installation after the end-date, Ofgem expect a record to be kept of why the supplier could not install a SMETS2 meter and why they considered it to be in the best interest of the customer for the SMETS1 installation to proceed.

Ofgem also noted that it expects suppliers to be enrolling all SMETS1 meters that are eligible into the DCC (Data and Communications Company), regardless of when they were installed.

See Ofgem's update here