The slowdown comes despite electricity prices soaring, which should make the financial benefits of smart meters more apparent.
The devices give households real-time data on their consumption. The displays only have a marginal effect on electricity and gas usage, according to government research.
The real benefits lie in sending half-hourly updates to the grid, which allows suppliers to balance out electricity usage by charging more during peak hours and less during quieter periods.
A growing number of energy suppliers has launched tariffs allowing households to take advantage of cheaper electricity during off-peak times, such as when charging electric vehicles at night.
Last winter, 1.6m households took advantage of schemes rewarding homeowners for cutting electricity usage at peak times.
In fact, Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest electricity supplier, now pays people to use electricity at certain times in response to a quirk in how the grid buys energy.
The troubled smart meter rollout has an impact beyond individual households – it will also influence net zero.
The types of energy management schemes employed by Octopus and other energy providers are likely to become more crucial as Labour seeks to make Britain’s electricity network run entirely on clean power by the end of the decade, relying more on intermittent sources such as wind and solar.
“It’s small now, but it will become increasingly important, especially as we get through the 2030s and into the 2040s,” says Matthew Lockwood, of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex.
“With smart meters, what governments have tried to do is to get the infrastructure to facilitate all of this in place ahead of mass demand.”
He predicts that while consumers have been slow to take advantage of the devices, that will change with a more digitally-literate population.