Martin Lewis warns British Gas, Octopus, OVO customers who 'haven't spent £1 yet this week'

Martin Lewis has warned British Gas, EDF, EOn and Ovo customers should have spent £1 this week. The BBC Sounds and ITV star has spoken out over the need for customers with a certain type of electricity meter to spend £1 now in a bid to slash energy costs following the new Ofgem price cap starting.

Anybody with prepayment meters should have parted with a quid on Monday July 1, Mr Lewis said. Martin explained: “We’re only talking people who do not have smart electricity pre-payment meters. So non-smart electricity pre-payment meters. In that specific case with most - not all of them - with most of them, what tells the meter your rate has changed is you topping up.

“So what you would want to do is you wouldn’t want to top up [last] week or you would want to run your energy down, or if you’re topping up, don’t top up too much. And then on Monday which is July 1 when the rates change, go and top up.

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"Even if you don’t need to top up, go and top up with £1 because it is that act of topping up on most non-smart electricity pre-payment meters that tells your meter to charge you the lower rate, and if you don’t top up you’ll be paying a higher rate until you do top up.”

The Energy Price Cap sets a limit on the maximum amount suppliers can charge for each unit of gas and electricity you use, and sets a maximum daily standing charge (what you pay to have your home connected to the grid). The Price Cap changes every three months, and is set to fall again from 1 July due to lower wholesale energy prices (what suppliers pay for gas and electricity) in recent months.

There are now fixes that undercut the Price Cap.