Public Health England publishes peer-reviewed study into smart meter safety

Public Health England, the government’s watchdog on public health, has published the final peer reviewed outcomes of its study, Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields from Smart Utility Meters in GB: Part 1, Laboratory Measurements in the Bioelectromagnetics journal. The study is an important milestone in PHE’s extensive work in this area and looked at the output of a range of smart meter devices during their normal operation, in a laboratory setting. The study has found that, consistent with PHE’s existing advice to members of the public, exposure to radio waves from smart meters is well below the health regulatory guidelines set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).  

The authors found that the data collected in the study demonstrate that smart meters are not a danger to health. Exposure to radio waves from smart meters is likely to be much lower than that from other everyday devices such as mobile phones and Wi-Fi equipment, and around one million times less than international health guidelines. This is because smart meters are only actually transmitting low power radio signals for short periods (typically 0.1 per cent to 1 per cent of the total time), and because of the distance that they are located from the body.

The research paper can be viewed and downloaded for free here.