Founder and CEO of Utilita Energy, Bill Bullen, has submitted a ‘red flag’ white paper to BEIS and Ofgem this week, requesting urgent intervention to avoid excess winter deaths caused by households self-disconnecting their energy supply due to a lack of funds.
The white paper focuses on the 2.25 million UK households – 50% of all households who PAYG for their energy – who remain on legacy or ‘traditional’ meters which have no digital connectivity and are like those used back in the 1970s. In the event these households are unable to add credit to their meters, their supplier will not know they have self-disconnected, nor will they be able to provide financial assistance.
The paper presents five major interventions to avoid excess deaths this winter and beyond:
SMART-INSTALL HOUSEHOLDS – Suppliers must, with immediate effect, prioritise smart installs for all legacy PAYG households.
NO STANDING CHARGE – PAYG suppliers should align with Utilita in not imposing a separate standing charge on low, or no, usage customers.
STOP MISINFORMATION – Smart Energy GB and suppliers must urgently improve education and myth-busting to enable legacy PAYG households to switch away from the inferior PAYG experience with confidence.
END SMART PAYG STIGMA – In the interest of the pocket and the planet, consumer bodies, charities and UK media must make it their responsibility to become better informed on the broader PAYG landscape and superior offerings available in avoidance of misleading consumers and fuelling the outdated PAYG stigma.
COLLABORATIVE CARE – Energy suppliers, BEIS and the Department for Work and Pensions must work together to better identify a simple strategy for helping every household avoid self-disconnecting.
Bill Bullen, Founder and CEO of Utilita Energy, who has also been calling for one price cap for all, comments on his reasons for submitting the white paper:
“After spending more than two decades revolutionising PAYG energy to deliver a premium digital service that helps households monitor their energy usage via their smartphone, I cannot just sit by knowing that there are 2.25m legacy PAYG households who are currently being under-served and are at risk of self-disconnecting and suffering in silence because of having an outdated meter.
“Unless the customer has refused a smart meter, there’s no excuse for legacy meters to exist today. Having no choice but to sit at home without heating or light is unacceptable and our government and the regulator must intervene immediately to stop self-disconnections for good.”
