It's good news for over a million UK households this week as energy customers will soon be paying less for their bills, lessening the pressure of the current cost of living crisis.
From Saturday, April 1, anybody on a prepayment meter with British Gas will pay as much as direct debit customers for gas, and keep the same current discount for electricity prepayment meters.
For people who get both gas and electricity with the company, they'll save an average of £59 per year. It comes as British Gas decided to push for a reduction in prepayment meter prices sooner rather than later.
The Mirror reports that in the Chancellor's recent Spring Budget, energy companies were told they weren't permitted to charge prepayment customers more from July - but British Gas decided to bring in the policy earlier.
Over the next three months, British Gas says its prepayment customers will be well over £10million "better off" with the average saving being £15 per household.
Chris O’Shea, chief executive of Centrica, the parent company of British Gas said: "We know that more help is needed for prepayment customers, and we support the Government’s decision to lower prepayment prices to the same level as direct debit customers.
"We wanted to do more to support this group of customers by introducing this change as soon as we could so British Gas prepayment customers will benefit immediately.
British Gas has around 1.24million customers with prepayment meters. However, around 158,000 only have electricity prepayment meters and will not benefit from the change.
Recent Government data revealed that British Gas, Scottish Power and Ovo Energy made up 70 per cent of all forced installations over the last year.
The information showed that more than 94,000 prepayment meters were forcibly installed last year when a customer hadn't paid their bill.
Last month it was revealed that debt agents acting for British Gas had broken into vulnerable people's homes to force-fit meters, and that courts had been waving through energy firm applications to forcibly install meters.
Earlier this month, the energy regulator Ofgem announced it was extending the ban "indefinitely" on forced prepayment installations which had been due to expire at the end of March.
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