16 million households have credit with their energy supplier at the end of this winter - with a £210 average. As the Cost of Living crisis continues, new research from Uswitch has shown some households are HUNDREDS in credit with their energy firms.
Consumers with Octopus Energy have the highest average credit out of the major energy suppliers at £233. Will Owen, energy expert at Uswitch.com, said: “Despite the expensive winter for energy bills, more than half of UK households are exiting winter with credit on their accounts.
“This may be because households were spending more on energy than the previous winter, as they were not benefitting from any government bill support this time around. In recent years, when bills have been so high and unpredictable, it has been a good idea to keep a lot of credit with your energy supplier.
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“However, the fall in prices this spring means that consumers with excessive credit may want to consider reclaiming some of it. If you have a high credit balance, you may want to ask your supplier to check that your direct debit is set at the right level for the amount of energy you use.
“Although falling energy bills is good news, they are still high by historic standards and unfortunately the number of people in debt has risen slightly. It remains important that those who do owe money to their suppliers continue to be given the support they need, and we recommend that you contact your provider if you are worried about your energy debt.
“To ensure you are being billed accurately, make sure you submit regular meter readings to your supplier if you do not have a smart meter.” British Gas customers are sitting on £216 on average, while EDF and OVO have £200 credit each. British Gas customers have the highest level of debt at £247, although it has the joint-lowest percentage of consumers in debt.
Speaking to BirminghamLive, an Octopus spokesperson said: "From our own data, our customers actually owe us £230 each on average currently - that’s a total of £1.54bn (net) across the entire customer base - as a result of us keeping direct debits as low as possible over winter.
"If customers are in credit, we make it as easy as possible for customers to refund it. To the best of our knowledge, we’re the only large energy supplier that enables customers to refund credit themselves directly from their account online or in the app (or of course by calling us if they like).
"Customers can withdraw credit from their account at any time. It’s typical for customers paying monthly by direct debit (the most common payment method) to go in and out of credit and debit through the year. To make it even easier for customers to understand this cyclical process, we created a unique tool – the Balance Forecaster.
"This handy tool allows customers to see what their account balance will be if they raise or lower their monthly payments (see gif below). We are the only energy company that offers anything like this and it has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers."
