Micro business using industrial electric meter

Underpressure5

My son is renting a building for his small business (just himself) there are 2 electric meters in the building and he has been charged thousands of pounds for using a small amount of electricity in the past 8 months. I contacted Citizens Advise to ask who I contact about the meters. I have spoken to the business energy team, the Northern power grid and a distribution centre. All advised me to ask the energy supplier for the meter to be downgraded. The energy company he was with have sold to a new company and he was originally on a deemed rate thus the £7500 bill. I contacted the new company and explained he was only using 10-14kw per day and asked if the meter could be downgraded. He said it couldn’t and said the prices he gave are excellent and best to sign a new contract asap. I said I was going to shop around and would come back. I spoke to a couple of companies who couldn’t give quotes as the address is showing as industrial commercial building. They advised what this meant and also why the costs are so high. I called the energy company back to speak to the advisor but he was busy. I left a message stating I had concerns about the cost not matching the usage fairly. Unfortunately he rang my son which is fine and he signed. I just want to know if it is possible to downgrade to a non domestic meter, if so who do I speak to. 

DE_612183

When you say "downgrade" do you just mean change to a different tariff?

If so the answer is yes.

If you mean can he be changed to a domestic supply - the answer is no.

I think you may be getting confused between meters and tariffs - all the meter does is record usage - it may be that the metering equipment is a 3 phase maximum demand set-up - but that does not mean he can't have a bog standard business tariff.

Robin9

It's possible that if he in a building that used a lot of power he would have CT (current transformer) metering - fine it you want 250,000 kWh a month, terrible for 10-14 kWh a day.   

EDIT -  deleted not relevant  If his supplier also does domestic metering - like the big boys eg BG - then a transfer within that supplier is possible. If not then he first needs to change to a supplier that does. Whether he can or not depends on the contract.

He may be better finding new premises.

marcia_

 He will probably be better in off finding different premises without business rates electricity 

MWT

Agreed on the premises switch, the problem is that he is in the wrong building for his type of business.

It would be easier, and probably cheaper, to move elsewhere rather than try to get the landlord to change the power provision for the building.

Hopefully he does not have a long lease...