Last 400,000 homes in Flanders required to install digital electricity meter

Flemish electricity grid operator Fluvius is sending out the first invitations to customers with solar panels who do not yet have a digital meter to install one.

This concerns an estimated 403,000 houses, flats and small businesses, which can expect to receive a notice abvout three months prior to the planned conversion of their meter.

For customers with natural gas, the gas meter will be replaced in addition to the electricity meter.

Fluvius intends to replace around 30,000 meters each month, beginning in January 2025, making analogue electricity meters “a thing of the past in Flanders”, according to the grid operator.

Customers with a photovoltaic installation less than 15 years old and whose solar panels were installed before 1 January 2021 were permitted to keep their analogue meters until 1 January 2025, according to an agreement between the Flemish government and Fluvius. But after that date, the switch to a digital meter becomes mandatory.

Digital meters should make it possible to use energy more intelligently and consume the most energy at times when the sun shines and the wind blows, Fluvius explained, stressing that the rollout of the digital meter is crucial for an electricity grid that is increasingly adding solar panels, heat pumps and electric cars.

According to a count carried out at the end of September, almost four million digital electricity and gas meters have already been installed in Flanders.