Citizens Advice calls for forced prepayment meter installations to stop until new protections brought in

The Campaign

In 2022, based on growing numbers of worrying cases in which vulnerable customers were forced onto prepayment meters (PPMs), Citizens Advice began campaigning for a temporary ban on the practice. A joint briefing with Money Advice Trust and Stepchange was followed by their Out of the Cold report, which called for action against suppliers who were breaking the rules.

The campaign saw considerable success in 2023, with national press coverage resulting from the publication of their Kept in the Dark report. They highlighted the issue through live data dashboard events and helped mobilise press action on a regional level through local Citizens Advice services.

Alongside questions in Parliament and regulatory promises, the campaign was boosted by an undercover investigation by Paul Morgan-Bentley at the Times. Ofgem announced an urgent investigation into British Gas and the remaining suppliers paused the installation of involuntary PPMs from February 2023 until 2024.

The Change

The campaign resulted in the successful introduction of a moratorium on new prepayment meter installations in February 2023. Citizens Advice then began working with Ofgem and the Government to ensure that new protections were making a concrete difference to vulnerable energy consumers.

The charity’s actions ensured that no customers were subject to forcibly installed PPMs (or remotely switched to smart prepay) for the rest of 2023. Citizens Advice’s data drove consistent visibility of the issue and maintained pressure from the Government and MPs to drive change. In collaboration with Citizens Advice and others, Ofgem designed new rules to protect vulnerable consumers from a prepayment meter installation, which were introduced into the market in November 2023.

In January 2024, Ofgem began to authorise some energy suppliers to start forcibly installing prepayment meters, provided that they demonstrated compliance with an extensive set of new rules. Energy suppliers are now required to assess their prepayment customers on an annual basis, to check if prepayment remains safe and practicable for them. Prepayment has been banned for some higher risk cohorts of customers. This includes households with children under two years old, or consisting only of people over 75 years old, who can be particularly vulnerable to the cold.

The Future

As the market changes, Citizens Advice will keep a close eye on trends and individual cases through our comprehensive data. The charity has committed to monitoring forcibly installed prepayment meters into the future and will raise the alarm if it sees emerging evidence of consumer harm.

Ofgem has committed to reviewing the new prepayment rules if they fail to protect consumers and has recently released figures showing that suppliers have paid approximately £350,000 to compensate people who had a prepayment meter wrongly installed during 2022.