What to do if your energy is cut off or your meter runs out

Look at the meter or the in-home display before you do anything else. A prepayment meter that has run out will normally say so, and will usually have been warning you for a while — a falling balance, a beep, a flashing message, or an in-home display that has gone red. A power cut looks different: the display is dead, nothing responds, and the neighbours are dark too. The distinction matters because the two problems have entirely separate owners. Credit is your supplier's business. Wires and pipes in the street belong to the network operator, who is a different company from your supplier and is not chosen by you.

If it is a network fault, that is a power cut and there is a single number for it across Great Britain. Ofgem's own guidance on supply problems points people at the Powercut 105 service for advice during an outage, and 105 routes you to the distribution network operator for your area without you needing to know which one that is. Reporting matters even when you assume someone else has, because network operators pay compensation under guaranteed standards of performance and those payments are calculated from recorded outages.

Those compensation amounts are worth knowing, because a long outage is not something you simply absorb. Ofgem sets out that in normal weather, where an incident affects fewer than 5,000 premises, a domestic customer is due £95 if supply is lost for more than 12 hours, with a further £45 for each additional 12-hour period. Where 5,000 or more premises are affected the trigger is 24 hours rather than 12, with the same £45 increments and an overall cap of £390. A household that has more than four power cuts in a year, each lasting at least three hours, is due a further £95. For gas, an unplanned supply interruption attracts £50 per 24-hour period for a domestic customer.

If the display is alive and simply showing no credit, this is what the industry calls self-disconnection, and the important thing to understand is that it is not disconnection in the legal sense at all. No notice was required. No protected category applies. No warrant was sought. The supply stopped because a machine reached zero, and the entire statutory apparatus described later on this page — the 28-day rule, the seven days' notice, the bar on disconnecting a disputed amount — has no bearing on it whatsoever. That asymmetry is the single most consequential thing to grasp about prepayment.

Check the meter type while you are standing there, because it determines what you can do next and how fast. A smart meter in prepayment mode is topped up remotely through an app, a website, a phone line or a text, and can be credited within minutes at three in the morning. A traditional key or card meter needs a physical trip to a shop, which is impossible at midnight on a Sunday and is exactly why friendly credit exists. Citizens Advice also notes that very old token-operated meters should be replaced, so if yours takes plastic tokens, ask your supplier to change it as a separate piece of work.

Finally, keep a record from this point. Note the time the supply went off, the balance and any debt figure showing on the meter, and the reference number of every call you make tonight. If any of this later becomes a complaint about how the supplier handled a household with no heating, that contemporaneous record is what a complaint handler or the Energy Ombudsman will read. It takes ninety seconds and it is the difference between a claim and an anecdote.

Every domestic prepayment meter in Great Britain carries emergency credit, and Citizens Advice puts the amount at around £10. It is not a grant and it is not the supplier being generous — it is a short-term advance against your account, and the whole of it is deducted the next time you top up. It exists so that a household is not plunged into the dark by a balance that ran out at an inconvenient hour, and it is the first thing to reach for.

On a smart meter operating in prepayment mode, Citizens Advice says you activate emergency credit through the in-home display. The exact wording varies by manufacturer, but you are looking for a menu item saying emergency credit, activate credit or accept emergency credit, and a button to confirm. It normally takes effect within seconds. Some meters require you to press a button on the meter itself rather than the display if the two have lost their link, which is a common cause of a household believing emergency credit is unavailable when it is not.

On a traditional key or card meter, the emergency credit is usually released by inserting the key or card into the meter after the balance has run down, or by a specific button sequence. Citizens Advice advises contacting your supplier or checking their website if you do not know how yours works, and that is genuinely the right answer — the sequence differs between meter models, and a supplier's out-of-hours team can talk you through it on the phone. Suppliers are also required to help if you tell them you do not know how to work your meter.

Understand the repayment before you use it, because this is where prepayment households get into trouble. Citizens Advice is explicit that emergency credit must be repaid when you next top up, and that the amount owed is visible on the meter or the display. If you have used £10 of emergency credit and you top up with £10, the meter will take the whole of it and you will be back at zero with the heating still off. The practical rule is that your next top-up has to cover the emergency credit, the standing charge that accrued while you were on it, any debt repayment set on the meter, and only then the energy you actually want to use.

If you cannot afford to clear it, say so rather than avoiding the top-up. Citizens Advice states that where you cannot afford the standard repayment of friendly hours credit, the supplier must arrange a repayment plan — and Ofgem's guidance on getting help with bills confirms that suppliers must work with you to agree a payment plan you can afford, and must consider a payment review, a temporary reduction or break, a longer repayment period, and access to any hardship fund they run. Debt recovery rates set on a prepayment meter are negotiable; the Utility Regulator makes the same point in Northern Ireland, noting that where a prepayment customer has a debt arrangement the supplier can adjust the deduction to an affordable level.

One protection is worth knowing if you are already in a formal debt process. Ofgem states that during a Breathing Space period under the Debt Respite Scheme, your energy supplier cannot install a prepayment meter without your permission and cannot collect any debt using your prepayment meter. In practice that means the meter's debt recovery rate should be switched off for the duration, so all of the money you put in buys energy. Breathing Space is triggered by a regulated debt adviser rather than applied for directly, which is covered in the guide on dealing with debt.

If the meter refuses to release emergency credit at all, ring the supplier's emergency or out-of-hours number, which appears on the bill and on their website, and say plainly that you are off supply. That phrase changes the queue you are in. Ask them to credit the meter remotely if it is a smart meter, and if there is anyone in the house who is elderly, disabled, pregnant, chronically ill or under five, say that too — it is the trigger for additional support credit, dealt with below.

Friendly credit — often called friendly hours credit — is the reason a prepayment meter that hits zero at nine o'clock on a Sunday evening frequently does not cut the supply off. Citizens Advice describes it as credit available during nights, weekends and bank holidays, running until friendly hours end. It exists on the sensible principle that a household should not be left without electricity at a time when there is no realistic way to buy any.

The critical detail is that the hours are not set by the regulator. Citizens Advice states plainly that the exact start and finish times vary by supplier and are found on the supplier's website. There is no single national friendly-credit window, so a household that switched supplier six months ago may be working from times that no longer apply. Look yours up now, while the lights are on, and write the times somewhere that is not on a phone that could be flat.

Access differs by meter type in the same way emergency credit does. Citizens Advice says smart meter customers receive friendly hours credit automatically, while customers with a traditional key or card meter should check with their supplier whether it applies and how. Automatic is the word to hold on to: on a smart meter you may not have to do anything at all, and a household can pass an entire cold weekend without realising it is running on borrowed credit.

That is precisely the trap. Friendly credit is repayable at the next top-up, exactly like emergency credit, and it stacks on top of it. A household that hits zero on Friday evening and does not top up until Monday morning can arrive at the shop owing the emergency credit, the friendly credit consumed across three days, three days of standing charges on both fuels, and whatever weekly debt repayment rate is programmed into the meter. A £20 top-up can disappear entirely before a single kilowatt hour is bought, and the household concludes the meter is broken when it is behaving exactly as designed.

The defence is to top up in the friendly window rather than at the end of it, and to ask for the arithmetic. When you ring the supplier, ask three specific questions: what is the total owed on the meter right now, what is the weekly debt recovery rate set on it, and what proportion of a top-up will actually buy energy. Suppliers can answer all three, and the third one is the number that tells you whether a £20 top-up is worth making tonight or whether you need additional support credit instead.

If the repayment is unaffordable, say so before you top up rather than after. Citizens Advice states that the supplier must arrange a repayment plan where you cannot afford the standard repayment of friendly hours credit, and Ofgem's rules require suppliers to consider a temporary reduction or a payment break. A debt recovery rate reduced from, say, £10 a week to £3 a week does not make the debt disappear, but it changes what tonight's top-up actually delivers into the house, and that is the decision in front of you.

Additional support credit is the least-known of the three credits and the most valuable, because it is discretionary rather than automatic and you have to ask. Citizens Advice describes it as credit a supplier may provide to customers it treats as vulnerable, and lists the categories: people over State Pension age, people who are disabled or have a long-term health condition, people who are pregnant or caring for children under five, people who cannot get to a shop to top up because of illness, and people struggling with living costs generally. That last category is broad, and it is worth invoking.

Ask for it by name. A call that opens with 'my meter has run out' is a top-up conversation; a call that opens with 'I am off supply, there is a two-year-old in the house, and I am asking for additional support credit' is a vulnerability conversation, routed to a different team with different authority. Citizens Advice notes that repayment of additional support credit is negotiable with the supplier based on your circumstances, which is the second reason to name it — the repayment terms are not fixed in the way emergency credit's are.

Fuel vouchers are the genuinely different thing on this page, because they are not a loan. A fuel voucher adds credit to your meter and there is nothing to repay. Ofgem's guidance on getting help with energy bills points households towards the Fuel Bank Foundation, which it describes as providing fuel vouchers you can use to add credit to your gas card or electricity key. The money comes from charitable and supplier funding rather than from your account.

You cannot normally apply directly. Vouchers are issued through referral partners — Citizens Advice offices, local advice agencies, food banks, some councils and some housing associations — which is why the practical instruction is to ring a local advice service rather than to search for an application form. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, National Energy Action's Energy Advice and Support Service on 0800 304 7159 is a starting point, open Monday to Thursday from 10am to 4pm and Friday from 10am to 12.30pm. In Scotland, Home Energy Scotland on 0808 808 2282, funded by the Scottish Government and managed by Energy Saving Trust, is the equivalent front door.

Redeeming a voucher has rules that catch people out. Citizens Advice states that vouchers are redeemed at PayPoint locations or at Post Office and Payzone retailers, that they typically expire within 15 days, and that you need identification — a passport, or a bill showing your name and address. A voucher issued on the 1st and remembered on the 20th is worthless. Redeem it the day you get it, take ID even if the shop has never asked for it before, and keep the receipt.

The Warm Home Discount reaches prepayment households by a similar route, which is worth knowing so that you do not assume you are excluded. GOV.UK confirms that customers with pay-as-you-go electricity meters remain eligible, and that suppliers decide how to deliver it — which may include a voucher you can use to top up your meter. The scheme is a £150 discount off the electricity bill, and GOV.UK states that it has closed and will reopen in October 2026.

If none of these routes produces credit tonight and there is a genuine risk to health, escalate rather than wait. Tell the supplier that a household member's health is at risk without heating or power, ask for the case to be treated as an emergency, and ask for the reference number. Then, if the supplier still does nothing, use the Extra Help Unit route described at the end of this page: Ofgem states that in England and Wales the Extra Help Unit supports people with complex complaints or personal circumstances that prevent them dealing with the supplier themselves.

The Priority Services Register is free, it takes minutes, and it is the highest-leverage thing on this page that costs nothing. Ofgem describes it as a register you join through your energy supplier and your network operator for extra help and support with your gas and electricity supply. Eligibility is wider than most people assume: Ofgem lists reaching State Pension age, being pregnant or having young children, struggling with speaking or reading English, living with a disability or long-term medical condition — including mental health conditions, impairments of sight, hearing or smell, and conditions requiring medical equipment — and recent life changes such as recovering from an injury, bereavement or job loss.

Register in two places, not one. Ofgem points out that because gas and electricity may come from different providers, you may need to register separately with each, and that the network operator is a separate registration again. The network operator is the one that matters in a power cut, since it is the body that decides who to reconnect first and who to warn in advance. Ofgem also notes that if you switch supplier you have to register with the new company — the entry does not travel with you, which quietly strands a lot of households after a switch.

What the register actually delivers is concrete rather than symbolic. Ofgem lists priority support in an emergency, advance notice of planned power cuts wherever possible, a password or verification scheme so you can be certain a caller or visitor is genuine, the ability to nominate someone else to receive communications on your behalf, a meter reading service, account information and bills in large print or braille, and support with gas reconnection where it is needed.

For prepayment households specifically, the register unlocks the fix to a problem that is otherwise expensive. Ofgem lists prepayment meter relocation where it is unsafe or impractical to access, and Citizens Advice adds the financial detail: a standard meter relocation may attract a fee, but Priority Services Register customers receive meter moves free. If your meter is at the top of a cellar staircase, in a locked communal cupboard, or on an outside wall you cannot reach, that is a free job you are probably entitled to.

The same conversation solves the other access problem — getting to a shop at all. Citizens Advice says to tell your supplier if you have difficulty reaching top-up locations because of health, distance, cost or mobility, and lists what a supplier may offer in response: another way to top up, for example by text message; a smart meter in prepayment mode so you can top up online; or a credit meter billed monthly or quarterly. It also confirms that where a smart meter requires cash payment, the supplier must provide access to a shop.

Two practical points on topping up itself. Citizens Advice states that credit added at a Post Office, Payzone or PayPoint using a barcode or reference number posts immediately, and that you should keep the receipt — the receipt is the evidence if credit fails to reach the meter. And if your key or card is lost or damaged, or if you do not know how to work the meter, the supplier is the body to ring; replacements are routine and are not a reason to sit without supply.

Disconnection for debt is a statutory power, not a commercial decision, and it is fenced in. Under paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 to the Electricity Act 1989, a supplier may disconnect the premises or install a prepayment meter only where the customer has failed to make the relevant payments within 28 days of a written demand, and only after giving the occupier not less than seven working days' notice. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 2B to the Gas Act 1986 does the same job for gas, requiring the 28 days after the written demand and not less than seven days' notice before the supplier may install a prepayment meter or cut off the supply by disconnecting the service pipe at the meter.

Both Acts contain the same short sentence that decides a great many of these cases. The Electricity Act provides that the power cannot be exercised as respects any amount which is genuinely in dispute, and the Gas Act says the powers are not exercisable as respects any payments or deposit the amount of which is genuinely in dispute. If you have told the supplier in writing that you dispute the bill and given your reason, the statutory route to disconnection is closed to them on that amount until the dispute is resolved. Put the dispute in writing, keep the copy, and quote it.

The regulatory layer sits on top of the statute. Citizens Advice sets out that a supplier may pursue disconnection where a bill has gone unpaid for 28 days, but must offer you a payment plan first, and that where court action is involved the supplier must give seven days' written notice before physically disconnecting. For a smart meter, Citizens Advice states that before disconnecting remotely a supplier must contact you about repayment options and visit your home to assess your circumstances — a remote disconnection carried out without a site visit is a rule breach on its face.

Reconnection is where the clock works in your favour, and the timings are specific. Citizens Advice states that once you have paid the debt plus reconnection fees — which must be reasonable — reconnection must happen within 24 hours. If the supplier misses that, £40 compensation is payable automatically, with a further £40 if the compensation payment itself is not made within 10 working days. You can also ask for a repayment arrangement for the reconnection charges if you cannot pay them in full up front, which is worth asking about before you empty an account to clear them.

Getting reconnected and getting solvent are two separate negotiations and should be treated as such. Citizens Advice sets out how a repayment plan is built: the supplier considers your income, outgoings and past usage, and you pay a fixed weekly or monthly amount covering both the arrears and your ongoing consumption. Its worked example is a customer owing £400 paying £10 a week towards the debt and £30 a week for current usage. Ask for the plan to be split in the same way, because a single blended figure hides whether your current usage is actually being covered.

There is a route that takes the decision out of your hands in a useful way. Citizens Advice describes Fuel Direct, under which deductions are made straight from a qualifying benefit to pay energy debt, and lists the qualifying benefits as Universal Credit, Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and Pension Credit. The supplier applies on your behalf; consent is needed for deductions covering current usage but not for the debt element. The Utility Regulator lists the same Fuel Direct scheme for Northern Ireland households having difficulty paying.

Be clear about what refusing a plan leads to. Citizens Advice states that if you reject a supplier's proposals or default on an agreement, the supplier may force the installation of a prepayment meter, and that disconnection remains a rare final option. That is the honest hierarchy: engagement, then a plan, then a prepayment meter, then — rarely — the supply going off. The next section is about resisting the third step in that sequence.

There are two overlapping layers of winter protection and they are frequently reported as one. The first is regulatory and applies to all suppliers. Citizens Advice sets out that between 1 October and 31 March a supplier cannot disconnect you if you have reached State Pension age and live alone, or live only with other pensioners or with children under 18. Where someone in the household is a pensioner, is disabled, or has a long-term health condition, the supplier must offer support before it can move towards disconnection.

The second layer is voluntary, and that word matters. Citizens Advice explains that most major suppliers have signed the Energy UK Vulnerability Commitment, which goes further than the licence conditions: it additionally protects households with children under 16 during the winter months, and protects households year-round where anyone is disabled, has severe health issues, faces financial hardship, or where there are children under six. It is an industry commitment rather than law, so it binds the suppliers who signed it and can be raised with them by name, but it is not something a court enforces.

The practical use of both layers is the same: say the words on the phone. A supplier's collections team is working from a screen that may not show that there is a four-year-old in the house or that the bill payer is 78 and lives alone. Tell them, ask for it to be recorded on the account, and ask for the reference number. Ofgem's Priority Services Register is the durable version of the same conversation, which is why registering is described earlier on this page as the highest-leverage free action available.

None of these protections, however, stops a prepayment meter running out. This is the point at which the two halves of the page meet. A pensioner living alone in January cannot lawfully be disconnected by a supplier in Great Britain, but a pensioner living alone on a prepayment meter with no money can be sitting in an unheated house on the same night, entirely lawfully, because nothing has been done to them. Additional support credit, friendly credit and the Priority Services Register exist precisely to fill that gap, and they only work if arranged in advance.

The rules also differ across the UK in a way that is easy to miss. Ofgem's licence conditions, and therefore the disconnection and prepayment rules described here, cover Great Britain. Northern Ireland is regulated by the Utility Regulator, whose consumer guidance emphasises contacting your supplier as early as possible, sets out that suppliers can offer repayment plans and review existing arrangements, and confirms that for prepayment customers with a debt arrangement the deduction amount can be adjusted to something affordable. It signposts free money advice to Advice NI on 0800 915 4604 and StepChange on 0800 138 1111.

If you think a rule has been broken — a disconnection with no notice, a remote smart meter disconnection with no site visit, a supplier that refused to consider a payment break — that is a complaint with a defined route, set out at the end of this page. Do not treat it as an argument to win on the phone tonight. Get the supply back on tonight, and put the complaint in tomorrow with the times, names and reference numbers you wrote down.

Involuntary prepayment meter installation is the sharpest end of energy debt, and since the 2023 scandal it is the most tightly controlled. Ofgem's prepayment meter guidance requires suppliers to refrain from all involuntary installations for the highest risk customers, and names them: households that need a continuous supply for medical reasons or for powered medical equipment, homes where a resident is aged 75 or over without additional support in the household, homes with children under two years old, and households where someone has a terminal illness or a medical dependency on warmth. It adds a category that has nothing to do with health — situations where no member of the household can physically top the meter up.

Above that absolute bar there is an assessment tier. Ofgem requires suppliers to evaluate cases where children under five live in the property, or where occupants have serious medical conditions including neurological disease or mental health conditions, and temporary situations such as pregnancy. Citizens Advice describes the same territory from the customer's side, listing households with a pregnant person, children aged two to five, or certain chronic health conditions who cannot afford to top up as being at risk of self-disconnection and therefore protected.

The procedural requirements before an installation are demanding and are the ones most often breached. Ofgem requires at least ten contact attempts with the customer beforehand, a site welfare visit to assess vulnerability, and audio or body cameras worn during warrant installations and welfare checks. Where an involuntary meter is fitted, Ofgem requires £30 of credit per meter as immediate assistance. After the debt is repaid, the supplier must reassess whether prepayment is still appropriate and discuss moving back to another payment method.

There are three thresholds that stop the process before it starts, and they are the first things to check. Citizens Advice states that a supplier will not proceed where the debt is under £200 for either gas or electricity, where it has been less than three months since the bill was issued, or where you have disputed the amount and explained why. That last one echoes the statutory bar in the Electricity and Gas Acts, and it is the reason a written, reasoned dispute is worth sending even when you expect to lose it.

Notice periods differ by route. For a smart meter switched remotely into prepayment mode, Citizens Advice says the supplier must give seven working days' notice. For a traditional meter where access is refused, the supplier may apply to a court for a warrant, and must give at least 21 days' notice before applying. Warrant costs of up to £150 may be added to your account, unless you face severe communication difficulties or financial hardship — which is another reason to have declared hardship in writing before it reaches this stage.

Not every supplier is even permitted to do this. Ofgem publishes the list of suppliers that have satisfied it they can resume involuntary installations under the new rules, and as published it names nine: EDF, Octopus and Scottish Power from 8 January 2024, E.ON and Tru Energy from 21 February 2024, Utility Warehouse from 26 February 2024, Utilita from 1 March 2024, OVO Energy from 18 September 2024, and Good Energy from 6 January 2025. To resume, Ofgem required each to complete an independent readiness assessment, audit past involuntary installations that breached the rules and offer compensation, obtain board-level assurance, and report regularly to Ofgem. If your supplier is not on that list, involuntary installation is not open to it.

Compensation for past forced installations is real and specific. Citizens Advice sets out that where a supplier moved you onto prepayment without permission between 1 January 2022 and 31 January 2023 — physically or by remote switching — the payments are £40 to £60 where the correct process was not followed, £250 where the supplier failed to give adequate debt support such as energy efficiency guidance, £250 for unfair treatment such as ignoring your ability to pay or not explaining how to top up, £500 where a vulnerable customer's risks were not properly assessed, and £1,000 where the installation created a serious risk of harm or was carried out unprofessionally.

Suppliers are supposed to contact affected customers by letter, but do not wait to be found — ask. Citizens Advice also warns that this is an active scam target, so never give personal or banking details to someone who rings you claiming to be arranging prepayment meter compensation. Verify by calling the supplier back on the number printed on your bill, and if the supplier disputes your entitlement, that is a complaint for the Energy Ombudsman rather than an argument to abandon.

Three national payments sit behind the winter, and they are not the same in all four nations. The Warm Home Discount is a £150 discount off the electricity bill, applied by the supplier to your account rather than paid as cash. GOV.UK states that the scheme has closed and will reopen in October 2026, that England and Wales and Scotland have distinct qualifying rules, that Scottish households may need to apply directly to their supplier rather than qualifying automatically, and that Northern Ireland households should look to the Affordable Warmth scheme instead. Prepayment customers are eligible, with the supplier deciding the delivery method.

The Winter Fuel Payment has changed twice in recent years and is worth checking rather than remembering. GOV.UK states that for 2026 to 2027 people born on or before 27 June 1960 may receive between £100 and £300, that most eligible people receive it automatically with a letter in October or November and payment in November or December, and that where total income is over £35,000 HMRC will take the payment back — with a partner's income not counting towards that threshold. Scotland is outside the scheme entirely and operates the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment in its place.

Cold Weather Payments are the weather-triggered one. GOV.UK sets out that £25 is paid for each seven-day period between 1 November 2025 and 31 March 2026 in which the average temperature in your area is recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees Celsius or below for seven consecutive days, that it goes to people on certain qualifying benefits, and that payment is automatic. England, Wales and Northern Ireland are covered. Scotland is not: mygov.scot sets out that Social Security Scotland pays a Winter Heating Payment instead — £62 for the next payment, paid automatically between December and the end of February, regardless of the weather.

Scotland and Wales also run separate advice and efficiency infrastructure that a household in fuel crisis should use. Home Energy Scotland, funded by the Scottish Government and managed by Energy Saving Trust, gives free impartial advice on 0808 808 2282 and can route households towards Warmer Homes Scotland. National Energy Action runs the Energy Advice and Support Service on 0800 304 7159 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, covering bill support, supplier disputes, tariff choice, efficiency measures and income maximisation, with a webchat and British Sign Language interpretation through SignVideo.

If the supplier gets it wrong, the complaint route is short and it ends somewhere with teeth. Ofgem says to complain to the supplier or network operator first, using the formal complaints procedure published on their website or printed on your bill, and that they must try to fix a reported problem within eight weeks. After eight weeks, or on receipt of a deadlock letter, or if you are simply dissatisfied with the answer, you can take it to the Energy Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman is free and its decisions are one-sided in your favour. Ofgem states that suppliers and network operators must carry out the actions listed in the Ombudsman's decision, and notes that Ofgem itself does not investigate individual complaints. The Energy Ombudsman's own scope covers energy suppliers, energy brokers, network operators, Green Deal providers, heat network suppliers since 1 April 2025 and flexibility service providers since 8 January 2026, and it covers Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Two escalation shortcuts exist for people who cannot wait eight weeks. Ofgem states that in England and Wales the Extra Help Unit supports people with complex complaints or personal circumstances that prevent them from engaging with the supplier, and that in Scotland the route is energyadvice.scot. Being off supply with a vulnerable household member is exactly the kind of case the Extra Help Unit exists for, so say so when you ask to be referred.

In Northern Ireland the front door is different again. The Utility Regulator, which regulates energy there, can be contacted on 028 9031 1575, and its consumer guidance directs households struggling to pay towards their supplier first and then to free money advice from Advice NI on 0800 915 4604 or StepChange on 0800 138 1111, alongside Winter Fuel Payment, Cold Weather Payment and the Fuel Direct scheme. The Energy Ombudsman covers Northern Ireland too, so the eventual escalation is the same body even though the regulator is not.