Up to 2 million domestic customers hit with very high energy bills

Up to 2 million domestic customers were hit with unexpectedly high energy bills last year, a recent report from Citizens Advice has been able to suggest.

An investigation by the aforementioned organization found the average back-bill was for £206, with 15% of those who had been back-billed saying they were charged more than £250.

Back-billing happens when customers have been undercharged for their energy for a period of time. It could be due to customers failing to pay bills but is often a result of supplier mistakes like underestimating bills or not investigating a technical fault, stated Citizens Advice.

Billing errors are said to be the main energy problem people contact the charity's customer service about, with 16,000 such cases last year.

It claimed one person asked for help when the consumer was billed "out of the blue" for £1,120 as the supplier had only sent them estimated bills and had never read the meter over a five-year period.

Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said: "Customers shouldn't have to pay the price for suppliers' mistakes. Energy bills are already high so it adds insult to injury when companies go back to customers looking for more money after they got it wrong. Particularly for suppliers who insist on payment in full, this can be a huge burden on already stretched finances.

"Smart meters provide a perfect opportunity to consign back-billing to the history books. As they are rolled out across the country Ofgem should ensure suppliers reduce the length of time they can back-bill customers."

HeatingSave — helping domestic users prevent unexpected energy bills

The HeatingSave Building Energy Management System is registered on the Government Energy Technology List, which means that users can easily obtain Green Deal funding in order to have the system installed.

Plus, since it allows home owners to cut energy bills by up to an impressive 30%+, HeatingSave is the perfect energy-saving measure to implement, given the huge long-term savings it enables.

The system is built around the idea of optimizing the energy consumption levels within any area with the help of an advanced heat-loss algorithm that creates a specific profile for any building and based on that, switches heating on later if its warm and off earlier if its cold.

It also automatically adjusts your boiler depending on how warm it is outside — save up to another 10%.

Additionally, the automatic occupancy detection allows the temperature to reduce to a background when areas are not used and quickly brought up to temperature when they are being used.

If you'd like to find out more information on the HeatingSave energy management system and the way in which one can take advantage of it in conjunction with the Green Deal program, just contact our dedicated team, they'll be more than happy to answer all of the questions and queries you might have.