Why everyone with a smart meter must take meter readings today for £120 | Personal Finance | Finance

Everyone with a smart meter is being told they must take a meter reading today – even if they have an automatic smart meter which usually takes readings for them.

Energy ombudsman Ofgem has from July 1 introduced a new lower price cap with electricity and gas bills dropping by £122 for a typical household, or seven percent.

That means everything you do in your house is now seven percent cheaper than it was on Sunday.

But that counts for nothing if your energy firm – whether it’s EON, British Gas, EDF, OVO or Octopus Energy – doesn’t have the correct information on how much you’ve used and when.

Official advice from Martin Lewis is that everyone should take a meter reading now and submit it between now and Thursday.

It used to be that energy firms’ websites crashed under the strain of everyone trying to take meter readings at once, but since then the companies have allowed for customers to backdate readings by a few days, so you can take the reading now and submit it this week and what you owe will be automatically adjusted.

It means you won’t be charged the higher rate for what you used on Monday or Tuesday if your energy firm thinks you might have used the energy on Sunday, when rates were higher.

Although the advice is pressing for those with manual meters – ie old style non-smart meters – because you always have to read the meter and submit it yourself, those with smart meters can still miss out too.

One EOn customer told the Express: “I have smart meters which were British Gas when I moved in and then I switched to Eon. They work as smart meters but when I looked through my meter reading history, it only takes a smart reading once per month, on the 23rd. 

“On previous price change days, I got an estimated reading, and the real reading wasn’t taken until the 23rd, probably because that’s the day my bill goes out.”

Although the estimate is likely to be quite accurate, the most accurate method is still submitting a meter reading, so even those with smart meters can and should take a reading by looking at their meter, taking a photo, and uploading it to their energy firm’s website to be absolutely sure that what you used tracks perfectly and you get the full benefit of the £122 boost as soon as possible.