Bidders have moved to offer bids for the rollout of smart meters across the UK, as industries gear themselves for the transfer to the new national measuring process.

The deployment of smart meter across the UK has now entered the pre-rollout stage, with tenders submitting offers for the delivery of new services.

While smart meters have been in operation in the UK for some time, industries have only implemented meters sporadically, often based on user choice.

Contracts up for biding include management of the overall project, data services provider and communications provider. Companies that have entered the bidding process include Capita, G4S, IBM and Telefonica.

The national implementation of smart meters is set to begin in autumn 2015, with 50 million meters expected to be installed by 2020.

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