Summary
- The Smart Energy Code has established a Post Quantum Computing Working Group for the smart-metering ecosystem.
- Its remit covers the DCC, its users, manufacturers, and relevant third parties involved in the end-to-end system.
- Existing work is examining whether some DCC interactions can move directly towards a quantum-safe target architecture.
Great Britain’s smart-metering ecosystem has established a dedicated industry group for post-quantum cryptography, bringing infrastructure operators, manufacturers, users, and other participants into a common process for managing a long-term change to the system’s cryptographic foundations.
The Smart Energy Code Security Sub-Committee has created a Post Quantum Computing Working Group covering the Data Communications Company, DCC users, manufacturers, and third parties involved in designing, developing, maintaining, or operating the end-to-end smart-metering system.
Its inaugural meeting was scheduled for 14 September between 13:30 and 15:00. At the time of validation, no public meeting outcome or minutes were available, so no conclusions from the session can yet be reported.
The group’s stated purpose is to provide information, awareness, guidance, and a consistent approach to post-quantum preparation across Smart Energy Code parties.
Work on the issue predates the new group. In November 2025, the Security Sub-Committee issued a briefing explaining that work was under way with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the DCC to investigate the interim and longer-term implications of post-quantum cryptography for smart metering.
DCC users were also encouraged to examine whether some interactions between users and the DCC could transition directly to an intended quantum-safe end state without waiting for changes involving smart-meter devices themselves.
That separation is important in an infrastructure estate containing long-lived equipment. Smart meters and communications devices are deployed at large scale and are not replaced on the same timetable as conventional enterprise software. Cryptographic migration has to account for hardware that may remain operational while standards, certificates, algorithms, and backend systems change around it.
Post-quantum planning is not based on evidence that a cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists today. The operational problem is the length of time required to inventory systems, replace algorithms, update software and hardware, redesign protocols, and test interoperability across a complex infrastructure estate before existing public-key cryptography becomes unsafe.
Some organisations must also consider whether encrypted information captured today could remain sensitive long enough to be decrypted in future if quantum capability advances. The relevance of that threat varies according to the data involved, but it adds another reason to understand where long-lived cryptographic protection is required.
The smart-metering environment adds a governance challenge because no single organisation controls the complete system. Energy-sector users, the DCC, manufacturers, and service providers operate different components under shared technical and regulatory arrangements.
A cryptographic transition can therefore fail even where one component is technically ready if dependent systems cannot support new algorithms, keys, certificates, or communications requirements.
The formation of a dedicated working group is an organisational step rather than the selection of a particular post-quantum algorithm. It formalises who must coordinate the transition and creates a venue for determining which parts of a national connected-energy system can change first without breaking the wider architecture around them.
