British Gas, EON, EDF, OVO and Octopus customers urged to take meter readings at midnight | Personal Finance | Finance
Customers of every energy firm from British Gas to E.On, OVO, EDF, Utilita and Octopus are being urged to take a meter reading as soon as possible before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
That’s because energy prices will increase again on New Year’s Day at 12.01am, and if you haven’t taken a meter reading, there’s a possibility your energy supplier might inadvertently mischarge you at the higher rate for previous usage. Energy prices will increase by another 0.2% thanks to Ofgem increasing the price cap. This means that £100 worth of usage on Tuesday will cost £100.20 on Wednesday.
The average cost of electricity and gas for a typical household will be £1,758 per year in 2025, a £3 increase on October to December and a £24 increase compared to July to October.
Smart meters are constantly updating, but they don’t necessarily send the information to your supplier every minute of every day, and in fact, some suppliers only ‘read’ your meter every few days or even weeks.
If, for example, you use a lot of energy on Tuesday, trying to take advantage of the ever so slightly lower prices before the price cap goes up at midnight, but you don’t take a meter reading until Wednesday, your energy supplier might average out your usage and assume that at least some of your Tuesday usage actually happened on Wednesday, and therefore will overcharge you for energy units you actually used on the lower rate.
To avoid this, you should take a meter reading as close to midnight on Tuesday, New Year’s Day, or as late as you can before you go to bed, and then again early on Wednesday morning.
This ensures that what you use is as accurate as possible.
You can also submit a meter reading in several days’ time and backdate it to Tuesday or Wednesday if you forget to submit it on that day. Energy websites used to crash with the volume of people trying to submit readings at the same time, so now they allow you to backdate it to space it out.
It might be tempting to submit more units of energy on your Tuesday reading to cheat and get more units for less, but this is fraud and is illegal.
Of course, if you’re on a fixed tariff, it won’t make any difference—and money guru Martin Lewis says the best way to beat the price cap is to get a fixed tariff.
Some fixed deals right now are much cheaper than the price cap, so they are likely to save you money over the next 12 months. Another price rise is expected in April.
