Emergency credit for gas prepayment meters

We never want you to be without an energy supply, so we put £6 of emergency credit on your gas prepayment meter. This gives you some extra time to get to the shop and top up.

You can use your emergency credit when the balance on your gas meter drops to £0.

To start using your emergency credit, just take your card out of the meter, then put it back in.

You'll see the words 'EMER IN USE' on your meter's display when you're using emergency credit. Your screen tells you how much emergency credit you have left.

The 'OWED' screen on your gas prepayment meter tells you what you owe after using emergency credit.

This screen shows you how much you owe for emergency credit. The amount will also include any standing charges or debt repayments you've missed (you don't pay these when you're using emergency credit).

How to get to the 'OWED' screen

1. Put your top-up card in the meter
2. Press and hold the red button until the main display comes on
3. Press the red button again to get to the 'OWED' screen

You can either pay back all your emergency credit debt in one go – or you can pay it back in stages.

Pay back all your emergency credit debt

Top up your card with enough credit to cover:

• The emergency credit you've used
• Any missed standing charges or instalment plan payments
• Your ongoing gas use

When you put your card in the meter, we'll take a payment to clear your debt. Any credit left after that pays for your ongoing energy use.

Pay back your emergency credit debt in stages

You pay back your emergency credit debt in stages if you don't put enough credit on your card to pay it all back in one go.

This is how it works:

• You top up your card; but it's not enough to pay all your emergency credit debt
• As soon as you put your card in the meter, we automatically take 70% of your credit to pay some of your debt
• You keep the other 30% of your credit for your ongoing energy use

The same thing happens until you've paid back all your emergency credit debts.