Not topped up for a while? Here’s some advice for traditional meters

Let’s find out how daily standing charge debts affect your top up amount

For traditional top-up gas meters

Ever got to winter, topped up your gas meter for the first time in a long time and found the credit disappears? This topic explains why. Let’s first talk about standing charges… What are they? And why do we pay them? Standing charges are a set, daily amount that you pay no matter how much energy you use. It covers the cost of the supplier to supply energy to your home. 

For traditional top up meters, standing charge debt is added to the meter daily, but won’t show up on the balance.

To see the standing charge debt on your gas meter follow these instructions: Firstly, make sure your top up card is out of the meter, then tap the red ‘A’ button to turn the meter on. It will then say “PLEASE WAIT” and show your current meter balance, lightly tap the red A button again once and this will take you to the “OWED” screen, which will show the outstanding amount. 

You might be wondering, ‘how do I pay this amount back?’ When there is balance outstanding on the “owed” screen the meter will take up to 70% of your top up towards the debt until its been cleared. Please be aware if you’ve used your emergency credit this will not be available to use again until the amount on the “Owed” screen has been cleared.

For traditional top up electricity meters

Electricity meters work slightly differently to gas, Keep pressing the blue button until you get to screen ‘F’, this is where can see the standing charge. Screen ‘F’ will show a combined total of daily standing charge and weekly debt recovery. The weekly debt recovery rate is how much is taken from your top ups to go towards any debt balance owed. 

If you don’t have any debt owed to the meter, then screen ‘F’ will just show the daily standing charge.

1% of the standing charge gets taken from your credit balance every 100 minutes. For example, if your daily standing charge is £3 a week, 3p will be deducted from your credit every 100 minutes. If there’s no credit, then it will build up as a debt balance. This will need to be paid back in full when you next top up. 

What support does OVO have available to support customers this winter?

If you or anyone in your household is vulnerable, or just needs a little extra help, our Priority Services Register is a free support service you might find useful.

If you’re not sure Pay As You Go is right for you, and are interested in switching to pay monthly you can contact the Pay As You Go Support Team. 

Struggling with your energy bills? Our Support Package might be helpful to you.

For more information about support OVO can provide please check out helpful FAQ:

Got a question about your Pay As You Go energy use, top-ups, keys, cards, or anything else? Why not see if you can find the answers in our dedicated PAYG Forum category.

There’s also helpful resources and information available in our PAYG Forum Library section and OVO Help pages.