The Advantages

-   No worrying about large catch up bills

-   You can top up weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or even daily - it's up to you!

-   Prepayment meters show you the remaining balance, helping you better manage your energy use - for example, you could turn on your washing machine and see how much a wash costs in real-time!

-   We offer 'Emergency Credit' on all of our prepayment meters (£11 for electricity, and £5 for gas). You can access this credit if your balance runs out, giving you a bit of extra time to pop to the shops to top up

-   Some types of electricity prepayment meters offer 'friendly credit'. This means that during the evening and weekends your meter won't disconnect until the next working day, even if you have run out of 'Emergency Credit'.

The Disadvantages

-   Prepayment tariffs are often higher than standard billing tariffs

-   To keep your energy on, you must keep your meters topped up by buying enough credit to cover your energy usage.

-   You will need to access your meters directly so that you can transfer the credit from the key/card to the meter.

-   Your energy usage will increase during winter months, which means that your regular top-ups will also have to increase. 

-   You will need to continue to add credit to your meters even if you're not using them to stop a debt of the daily standing charge building up. This is especially true for gas meters, which we sometimes stop using in the summer. If you don't keep the meters topped up, you will have to make a much larger top up when you want to use them to get the energy back on.

-   If you have any debt on your meters, a portion of each top up will be used to clear these. It's important to remember this when topping up.