Ways To Money

Why is it so hard for energy companies to bill customers for the right amount of energy they use?

Providers rely on estimated billings before taking a meter reading to calculate your energy bill.

This invariably leads to consumers over or underpaying their bills. The ‘theory’ is that you overpay your bill in the summer (when you obviously use less energy) and then this levels out when you use more gas or electricity in the colder winter months.

As I understand it gas and electric supplies are dependent on an old infrastructure which is why it is not technically possible to bill customers correctly.
So suppliers rely on taking meter readings on a regular basis – but there are always errors with this.

We get countless reader emails at This is Money to say that a meter reading was not correctly taken for a period of time. Energy firms list excuses such as no-one showed us the meter/the meter was not accessible/an incorrect reading was taken (delete as appropriate because there is an endless list of excuses).

Then six months (or even years later) a bill demanding payment for the correct amount arrives on your doormat after a correct meter reading has eventually been taken.

If a correct meter reading had been taken from the start then the cost of paying for the electricity could have been spread ou,t but because of the infrastructure/failure to take a correct reading you’re then lamped with paying it in one large chunk.

Energy suppliers will and should sort out a repayment plan for customers who find themselves in this situation – but why can’t this process just be simplified?

Sure you can take a meter reading yourself and relay this back to your energy company – but mistakes can still happen.

There is a small glimmer of hope, the introduction of smart meters – technology which is still very much in its infancy. Eventually it is hoped that these devices will be able to feed back the usage of energy to the suppliers directly.
But until this system is widely implemented I can’t believe that we’re just supposed to sit back and pay for energy we’re not using?Tara Evans, Journalist, This is Money

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