RTS switch-off completed successfully, says minister

The switch-off of the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) has been carried out successfully, a UK Government minister has declared.

Martin McCluskey said while there are still a “small number” of RTS meters in homes across the UK, people are no longer reliant on them.

He was speaking some two weeks after the RTS, which was used by older electricity meters to control heating and hot water, was switched off for good at the end of June.

The Government last year delayed the switch-off by 12 months amid concerns there could be disruption to hundreds of thousands of households.

Industry regulator Ofgem warned at the time that any households left without a functioning meter could have their heating and hot water systems left continually on or off, have electric storage heaters charging at the wrong time of day, possibly leading to higher bills, while suppliers would be unable to confirm if electricity was used during peak or off-peak times.

McCluskey, the UK energy consumers minister, said on Thursday he could now “say with confidence the switchover has worked”.

While he added that “on paper there are still meters that need replaced” with more modern smart meters, the minister said: “All the people who have RTS meters have been contacted, in some cases a dozen times.

“Where there are maybe some people we haven’t reached, I think they will be very small in number.”

The minister also said the remaining RTS meters “are largely in places where they have not been reliant on RTS for a number of years”.

Speaking to journalists, McCluskey said: “In some cases we have had energy suppliers knocking on doors, and the people didn’t even realise they had got an RTS meter and they hadn’t been using it for a number of years.

“So we’re confident that even though there are a small number of outstanding meters, they are not households that are reliant on RTS.”

He added that if there are still households with RTS meters, “the energy suppliers have systems in place to address that very quickly”, saying meters had been “replaced rapidly” after the June 30 switch-off.

McCluskey stressed however: “If there are people who continue to face issues we want to hear about that and they should contact their energy supplier in the first instance, but should also reach out to their Member of Parliament as well.

“Now we have a situation where those people who were reliant on old and vulnerable technology are now being served in large part by smart meters that give them access to the latest technology and the latest tariffs.

“In some cases, the technology people were relying on goes right back to the 1930s, so this is really dealing with an issue that has been around for a very long time.

“I’m very pleased we have managed to get to a point where we have switched it off.

“Having inherited something which should have been done years ago, having inherited it in 2024 to get to a point now in 2026 where we have successfully done it, I would count as an achievement for the Government.”