Gaming the system by not giving a meter reading on 31st March?

Reed_Richards

I heat my house with electricity and have solar panels.  At this time of year my electricity consumption is dropping quite rapidly as demand for heating falls and I get more solar power.   So I imagine if I left it to my electricity supplier to guess my meter reading on 31st March they would over-estimate.  This would work to my advantage give the price rise that will take place.  Am I right?  

Petriix

It's a roll of the dice which may or may not work out in your favour. On the other hand, they may accidentally on purpose under-estimate your reading and you'll be worse off. I'm vaguely tempted to let them estimate my gas. I haven't provided a reading since January so I think I've got a decent chance of banking some cheaper units, but it may be complicated if it takes a long time for the real reading to catch up with the estimate.

[Deleted User]

When the supplier gets an actual meter reading, it should revise its estimate for the 1st of April based on the new meter reading.

savers_united

A few things here to consider:

They could under estimate

They could feel its suspicious when you have been providing readings on a regular basis previously (if you have been) 

They could use previous years data and see your usage drops after a certain time of year to estimate pretty accurately, especially if your last reading was not that long ago. 

Check your t&cs as it probably states you need to provide regular readings, they may under estimate so see your reaction as no doubt what you suggest many are thinking the same. 

If you then send in a reading it could be difficult for you to argue how much you have used previously and at what times if you are not sending in regular readings. 

And then I guess you need to add up how much they are likely to over estimate by and how much it would save you, is it really worth risking them under estimating. If you don't use much during the summer then you could get caught in October. 

Reed_Richards

[Deleted User] said:

When the supplier gets an actual meter reading, it should revise its estimate for the 1st of April based on the new meter reading.

Yes, that's a very good point.  My scheme works if the supplier uses extrapolation from past readings but fails if they interpolate between my previous reading and some future reading.