British Gas, EDF, OVO and EON households must take meter reading today for £117 boost

UK households are 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 today, April 1, introduced a new lower price cap with electricity and gas bills dropping by £117 for a typical household, or 6.6%, down from an average of £1,758 a year for a dual fuel household with typical use to £1,641.

That means everything you do in your house is now 6.6% cheaper than it was on Tuesday on average, with electricity prices dropping from 27.69p per unit on average to 24.67p per unit, while gas is dropping slightly from 5.93p per unit to 5.74p on average.

Part of the reason for the drop is the government's decision to axe green subsidies from bills and move them to general taxation, which has shaved £150 off annual energy bill charges for households, even those on fixed deals, in an 'unprecedented' change.

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 and submit it within a few days of the price cap change.

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 Wednesday or Thursday if your energy firm thinks you might have used the energy on Monday or Tuesday, when prices were higher.

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 £117 boost as soon as possible.

Martin Lewis said about a previous price cap change, how it works, but the advice still applies. He said: “Most people pay by monthly direct debit, where your average use is taken over the year, and it’s smoothed out so you don’t have big cashflow issues in the winter.

“That is based usually on estimates of what you will use. Because the price is going to be dropping 7%, if you allow your energy firm to estimate your usage, it could estimate more at the higher rate before...than it does afterwards because if it’s looking across a couple of months it might choose to allocate some of those units that you use to the higher rate period.

“To counter that, you either have a working smart meter, or you take a meter reading."