They are not being "pushed on us" by the EU.
The EU did require member nations to perform a cost/benefit analysis of rolling out smart meters, and for the UK this analysis suggested that the benefits outweighed the costs.
Why would a government want to roll out smart meters?
Its to do with energy transition, and balancing the national grid...
Nobody knows for sure exactly what our energy system will look like in the future, nor the exact mix of generation we will rely on - technology is changing all the time..
What we can be fairly certain of is that it will be different to what we are used to, and that the energy market will be increasingly decentralised, probably with an increased reliance on intermittent supplies of energy.
Balancing a grid in these circumstances will be much more complicated than it was in the past - an excess of supply can overload the system, whilst not enough supply will cause blackouts/drop in power.
So one of the solutions to this problem is a "smart grid", where information can travel in two directions to help match supply to the demand. Smart meters by themselves will not solve the problem, but they are part of the solution to the technical problem (legislative and economic barriers are more troublesome to overcome).
Energy suppliers want them because the data is helpful for their business.
a pp mentioned gridwatch - it is an interesting website (if a bit geeky). You can see how much we are using and where our energy is coming from live -
gridwatch.co.uk/
Not much solar today!!!
We take the instantaneous supply of energy for granted, but we really shouldn't. We rely on it increasingly for all areas of life, even more than in the past thanks to increasing digitisation etc. Energy security is a BIG issue. This program was broadcast recently and very briefly puts it into perspective quite nicely:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rx4z9
Personally, I am going to get a smart meter but not yet - I am going to wait until they are rolled out properly and are more universal.