Prepayment meter

Quarter of prepayment energy vouchers still unused

Some of the prepayment energy vouchers have now expired – but we can ask for them to be sent again

Many of us with older-style prepayment energy meters still haven’t claimed our energy support vouchers, new figures show.

Prepayment energy vouchers are issued monthly over winter and are worth £66 or £67. But each voucher is only valid for 90 days from when it was issued.

That means the first vouchers, issued in October and November, have now expired. And the December vouchers will expire on 8 March.

About one in four of them weren’t used. But if this is us, all is not lost – we can ask our energy supplier to reissue them.

Homes in London, south-east England and Scotland are least likely to have claimed their vouchers.

What’s the voucher scheme all about?

The vouchers are part of the government’s Energy Bills Support Scheme. It promised £400 to every household to help with energy bills over the winter.

We don’t have to apply for the support but it is paid in different ways. For customers on direct debit plans, standard credit or those with smart prepayment meters our bills are discounted automatically.

But those of us with traditional prepayment meters get vouchers, which we have to hand over when we top up.

The vouchers are sent out by email, text or in the post. We should open our post every day to make sure we haven’t missed anything. It’s also worth making sure our supplier has our up-to-date email address and phone number.

What if my vouchers have expired?

Don’t panic! Our supplier can reissue them but it’s down to us to get in touch and ask them to do so.

When we’re asking for them to be reissued we should make sure we know which method the supplier will use to send them to us.

Then we get another 90 days to redeem the voucher. All vouchers will expire on 30 June 2023 – after that we won’t be able to get any more sent out.

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