Record month for prepayment meter top-up help

Citizens Advice helped a record number of people who could not afford to top up their prepayment meter in January 2024, the charity reported in its energy data published on 23 January 2024¹. The figures cover the charity's own advice work across England and Wales, and the same publication records that February 2024 was a record month for people helped with energy debt¹.

The charity said the January peak came as households struggled with rising energy prices and cold weather, and that the numbers fell back significantly in February 2024 because of the £299 February Cost of Living payment and the warmest February on record¹. Fuel voucher referrals also dropped in February for the same two reasons¹. On the wider trend, Citizens Advice said 2024 was tracking slightly below 2023 but still much higher than at the same point in all other years¹.

"In 2022, we saw more people who couldn't afford to top up their prepayment meter than the whole of the previous ten years combined - and 2023 was even higher than 2022."

Energy debt is now the leading debt issue the charity helps people with across most of the country, having displaced council tax arrears, which was the most common form of debt before the pandemic, followed by credit, store and charge card debts¹. Rent arrears remains the dominant debt issue in Greater London¹. Of the people helped with energy issues in 2023, over 50 per cent needed crisis support such as food bank referrals or emergency charitable support¹. The charity also reported a high proportion of people with a disability or long-term health condition among those unable to top up, which it described as particularly concerning because of the increased risk of significant physical and mental harm for those groups¹.

The charity said energy prices had fallen in recent months but remained at historically high levels, and that high energy and housing costs were driving the people it helps into a negative budget¹. It also reported helping record numbers of people with practical energy efficiency advice¹. The publication does not give the actual number of people helped in any of these categories, and no figure for the January 2024 record has been reported¹.

Why it matters for households

A prepayment meter requires credit on the meter before gas or electricity will flow, so a household that cannot top up is at immediate risk of self-disconnection until it can add credit or use emergency credit. The charity's figures show that demand for help with topping up has been concentrated in the winter months and eased when a one-off payment and milder weather arrived together, which points to how closely prepayment top-up pressure tracks both temperature and the timing of support payments. For a household's energy independence, the practical significance is that a prepayment meter converts a shortfall in cash into an immediate loss of supply, rather than a debt that builds up on a credit account. Energy debt being the leading debt issue also matters because debt on a prepayment meter is typically recovered through the meter itself, which reduces the credit available for each unit used; the site's guide to repaying energy debt through a prepayment meter sets out how that recovery works. The charity's separate reporting on Citizens Advice and energy covers the consumer service and complaints route.

What happens next

The publication gives no dated commitments or scheduled announcements. It states that 2024 is currently tracking slightly below 2023 for people unable to top up, and that February 2024 saw a drop in both top-up and fuel voucher cases, but it does not say what it expects in later months¹.

Sources2 cited

1. Energy data - Citizens Advice, citizensadvice.org.uk
2. Energy data - Citizens Advice, citizensadvice.org.uk