Gazprom Marketing and Trading, the UK subsidiary of the Russian conglomerate, has bought an equity stake in a British automated metering company.

Truread provides technology to enable automatic data transfer and remote reading for utilities and commodities meters.

Networked meters will help consumers to control energy use as environmental issues move further up the regulatory agenda, said chief executive of Gazprom Marketing and Trading Vitaly Vasiliev.

"Smart metering is the technology of the future," he said.

"With rising public and regulatory concern about the need to reduce carbon emissions, this proprietary technology will enable multi-commodity consumers to be more energy efficient and to control their energy use more easily and cost-effectively."