The Parish Council has been asked to pass the following information on to residents.
People are advised to take gas and electricity meter readings on 31st March, regardless of the type of meter, smart or otherwise. Ideally a photo of both meters showing the readings, meter serial number and the date stamp.
Submit the meter reading to the energy supplier right away. If for whatever reason you can’t submit that day, you have photos as evidence of meter readings and the date they were taken.
As most people know, on 1st April 2022, the new OFGEM (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) energy price cap comes into force. This means much higher energy rates for millions of people. It is important that suppliers do not charge for energy units used at the old lower rates before the change on 1st April 2022.
Thursday 31st March 2022, is National Meter Reading Day.
Not all elderly residents may have access to smartphone cameras or the Internet, so if you can offer neighbours a helping hand to record their readings with a photo, please do.
Sneaky Tip.
If you have an old prepayment meter you may be able to buy some energy at the lower rate to use after 1st April. It wont work for smart meters !
See
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/02/prepay-for-your-energy–you-could-keep-today-s-cheaper-rates-for/
for how to do this.
It seems OFGEM say this ok…..see below.
An Ofgem spokesperson told us: “Smart prepayment meters update prices automatically – so topping up in advance would not make a difference. With non-smart prepayment meters, the price customers pay is fixed at the point they top up.
“This means that any built-up credit is spent based on the price of energy… [when] that credit was purchased. So a price increase could temporarily be avoided by building up credit in advance, though this would also work the other way if the price went down.”