Do you stop topping up your gas prepayment meter for the spring/summer months?

Do you stop topping up your gas prepayment meter for the spring/summer months? If so, be prepared for standing charges when you top up again in the autumn/winter.

If you use a prepayment meter just for your home’s gas heating, it’s understandable you may wish to stop topping up over spring/summer when you may not need your heating on.

However, you may find that when you start topping up again in the autumn/winter, that your first top up credit is used immediately on daily standing charges which roll on throughout the year, whether you top up regularly or not.

For example, if you stop topping up in May and start topping up again in October, you will have 5 months’ of daily standing charges as debt on your meter. This debt will start to be taken as soon as you start topping up again.

In order to avoid standing charge debt in the future, you need to ensure that you top up or save at least the amount that covers these charges, even though you’re not using the credit for energy.⁣ At the current daily standing charge rate of 30.97p per day, you would need to top up around £2.16 per week to cover standing charges.

If you do find yourself in the position of not having topped up at all until the autumn/winter, there are still things you can do:⁣
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✔️ Find out what the standing charge debt is by scrolling through the options on your meter by pressing the ‘A’ button and finding the ‘amount owed’ option.⁣
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✔️ Then get in touch with your energy supplier as soon as you can, tell them the amount owed and say you would like to work out an affordable repayment plan with them in order to clear the debt, so that most of your top-up is available for your energy use.⁣ ⁣⁣
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