The house we’re in is on a pre-paid smart meter which we usually top-up using the SSE app. We’re running low today (around £3 credit left) and we had planned to top it up but it turns out there’s scheduled maintenance until 11:30pm tonight.
According to the message on the app, if we had credit at 4pm yesterday (Sat 15th) we won’t be disconnected, but I couldn’t find any further info about it on the SSE site… it’s also Sunday so I can’t call them.
Will we remain connected until the scheduled maintenance is over and we can top it up again? Or will our power just be randomly cut off?
Really don’t want to go without power and I’m a bit anxious!
6 comments
I haven’t had a pre-payment meter in yonks, but shouldn’t it enter emergency credit if you run out?
edit: On the one page I can find
> Don’t worry – your energy won’t be switched off Monday – Friday 6pm until 9am the next day and Saturday from 4pm until 9am Monday.
That would suggest that regardless of any credit statuses, they’re in the habit of never turning off energy outside of business hours.
Do you mean there’s maintenance on the app?
Do you not have the physical cards you can use at a payzone/paypoint?
If you’ve got a smart meter you can get it turned into credit mode and pay monthly. It’s less hassle as you’ll never run out of credit, plus it is usually cheaper than prepayment.
If it’s scheduled maintenance then the meters should be in non-disconnect mode, similar to out of hours where they won’t shut off until the following day so that you have a chance to top up when the shops are open and no maintenance is scheduled.
If for some reason it does shut off they have emergency callout engineers on stand by, you can contact them and explain you’re off supply and they’ll send someone out who’s priority will be to get your electric back on.
Meters for most suppliers do not disconnect overnight or all day Sundays/bank holidays. If you run out it will remain on until the next working day until around 8/9am.
My uncle’s disconnected just before the 4PM and by the time he went to top up it was just after 4PM yesterday.
He’s been sitting with no electricity and my cousin has severe learning difficulties. Can’t send us a code for some reason and can’t send out an engineer.
This is one of those things that I despise about smart paygo meters – whenever there’s an update of the software on either the meter or the company app, it’s rarely scheduled for convenient hours.
Okay, so I’m going to say that with smart Paygo it should still work as normal until the following day. Traditional paygo meters had a default of not disconnecting the customer’s supply until the next morning (I think that was something like eight or nine in the morning, I’m sorry but I can’t remember) and even if it did disconnect you’d just pop your card/key into the meter to access the emergency credit. However, with smart meters – and the fact that the app’s getting “maintenance” done – I’m not entirely too sure. However, SSE do have a page on accessing the emergency credit [here](https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/meters/smart-meter-help/emergency-credit#emergencycreditelec).