Energy: Meters
(asked on 21st November 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 18 November 2016 to Question 52983, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of people using pre-payment meters.
Ofgem monitor the number of electricity and gas pre-payment meters (PPMs) installed. While most PPMs have historically been installed to repay debt, this has declined since 2013 and the most recent Ofgem report suggested there was evidence of new demand being driven by smart meters operating in pay-as-you-go mode, which is classified as PPM for these statistics.
Fuel | Total number of PPMs installed in 2015 | Total number of PPMS installed in 2015 to recover debt | Total number of PPMs installed in 2015, requested by customers without a debt |
Electricity | 327,107 | 149,098 | 178,009 |
Gas | 348,515 | 150,023 | 198,492 |
This data is available online at: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2016/10/monitoring_social_obligations_-_2015_annual_data_report.pdf.
The full Ofgem report is available online at: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/domestic-suppliers-social-obligations-2015-annual-report.