Mark England, Sentec CEO, said: "The deregulated structure of the UK market is uniquely challenging for rapid and co-ordinated action in a large scale initiative like this, and we believe that smart meter deployment in 65 percent of UK homes by 2015 is not possible."

England added: "There is a great deal of work still to do to finalise the technical and regulatory framework for smart metering."

According to IMS, even by 2015, Germany and Poland will see less than 30 percent smart meter penetration.

At the moment, says IMS, only 4.2 percent of homes in the UK and Ireland have smart meters installed.