If you pay your energy bill via direct debit, your energy supplier might actually owe you money\u2026<\/p>\n
Your direct debit is an estimate based on how much energy your supplier thinks you will use every month. How often this amount is reviewed will depend on your energy supplier, but it\u2019s usually reviewed once or twice a year.<\/p>\n
This review might lead to your direct debit amount being adjusted to ensure that your payments align with your actual energy usage.<\/p>\n
Because your direct debit is based off an assumption of how much energy you are using, you will sometimes build up credit or debt with your supplier.<\/p>\n
If you are in debit with your supplier, you owe them money due to using more energy than they assumed you would, meaning you have paid for less than you have used. If you are in credit, the opposite applies, as you have used less energy than you\u2019ve paid for.<\/p>\n
Your energy supplier may refund any money they owe you at the end of the year and\/or reduce your direct debit payments to ensure your bill is more accurate going forward.<\/p>\n
However, this may not be done automatically, so if you are in credit with your supplier, particularly if this is a significant amount, you may wish to contact them to request a refund.<\/p>\n
This said, if you build up credit over the summer months, you should bear in mind that you might need some of this money kept in your account to help cover your energy usage over the winter. This is because in the colder months, our energy usage tends to increase, and consequently so do our energy costs.<\/p>\n
Therefore, before claiming back any credit, you should think about whether you are likely to have higher energy bills in the coming months and whether you think it would be difficult to pay these bills without having this credit available on your account. A good way of working this out is to check your monthly energy statements to work out the average cost and usage over both winter and summer months.<\/p>\n
An alternative option is to contact your supplier and request a partial refund, so that you get some money back now, but also keep enough in your energy account to cover any higher energy bills.<\/p>\n