Pre-Payment Meters

Pre-payment meters, sometimes called key meters or card meters, are electricity and gas meters that let you pay for your energy on a pay-as-you-go basis. Yü Energy customers can do this in various ways, depending on whether they have a standard or smart prepayment meter.

SMART PRE-PAY METER

Yü Energy customers will receive a payment card which can be topped up via your mobile phone using the Smart Pre-pay app or at over 40,000 epay top up points in the UK.

If you have a gas meter you’ll be issued a pre-payment card, whereas, for electricity you’ll have a key.

GETTING STARTED / BEFORE TOPPING UP

To activate your pre-payment card or key, simply insert it into your meter for at least 60 seconds before your first top up. Failure to activate your card or key will result in the meter not recognising your details and not topping up your account as a result, potentially leaving you without gas and electricity.

Entering your new pre-payment key into your meter will wipe any existing credit and debit off the meter, where a previous customer had the meter installed.

TOPPING UP YOUR STANDARD PRE-PAYMENT METER

Where?

Your pre-payment card/key can be topped up at any Post Office or in any shop where the PayPoint or Payzone logos are present.

How much?

You can credit up to £49 in a single transaction.

You can have up to £499 credit on your gas meter, and £499 credit on your electricity meter. 

TRANSFERRING CREDIT TO YOUR STANDARD PRE-PAYMENT METER

Electricity

Insert your pre-payment key into your meter. The screen will briefly display your current credit on your key. To ensure your credit Is transferred onto your meter successfully, we recommend that you leave your key in your meter for at least 5 seconds. You can check that the transfer has been successful.

Gas

1. Insert your payment card into the slot in the meter
2. Press the red button A to transfer your credit to your meter

Getting Started
Once you have been set up with your pre-payment smart meter, you will receive an email with all the information on how to top up electronically, please ensure we have your correct contact details. You will also be sent a card in the post which you’ll receive within 1-2 days following installation.

You can top up on the smart pre-pay portal, by visiting a local epay retailer or by downloading our payment app.

To top up using the app:

Yü Energy customers receive information via email to allow them to register on the SMART PRE-PAY app which allows you to top up from your mobile phone. Read our set up guide.

You will also receive a payment card at a later date which can be used at over 40,000 epay top up points in the UK.  Find your nearest epay point here.

The retailer will scan your barcode and you can pay the required amount, which will be automatically added to your smart meter. Please keep your receipt from the transaction as it contains a 20 character Unique Transaction Reference Number (UTRN). Please keep this number for future reference.

Please note that a PAYZONE payment will take 24 hours for the payment to be received and will not automatically top up your meter. 

How much?

The SMART PAYG App will allow you to top up £50 max in a single transaction.  Transactions of a higher amount (Max Top up is £175.00) will need to be made at one of the EPAY top up locations.

You can have up to a max of £499 credit on either of your meters. 

TRANSFERRING CREDIT TO YOUR METER

You don’t have to do anything! Usually a message will be sent immediately to your meter to top it up automatically.

In the unlikely event that this does not happen, please contact Yü Energy during office hours.

What is emergency credit and how does it work?

For Traditional pre-payment meters:

If you’re running out of credit and are unable to get to a top up point, you’ll be able to access £10 of emergency credit to stop your power from being cut off. Please note, emergency credit will only become available to you when you have less than 50p left on your meter. Insert your prepayment key into your meter to access your emergency credit. Once you run out of emergency credit, if you are outside of friendly hours your supply will be temporarily disconnected until you top up your meter.

For SMETS2 meters in pre-pay mode:

Emergency credit of £15 will become available when the credit on your smart meter is running low. You will get an alert to ACTIVATE emergency credit on your smart energy display. You must ACTIVATE the emergency credit when this appears. If you don’t, you risk temporary disconnection of your power supply and the emergency credit will no longer be available.

Emergency credit will give you enough time to arrange a top up, however, if the emergency credit runs out before you top up then the power supply will be disconnected.

If your supply does become disconnected, you can activate your power supply through your smart energy display. Please note, the amount of emergency credit used will be deducted automatically from the next top up so please consider this while purchasing a top up.

Non-disconnection periods

We understand that sometimes being unable to top up is simply out of your control. That’s why if you run out of credit during a bank holiday or on the following times, your meter will never disconnect – even if you run out of emergency credit. To obtain friendly hours credit, you must have at least 1p credit on the meter when this changes over to 3pm/4pm.

• Monday – Thursday between 4pm and 10am from November to March (clocks go forward)
• Monday – Thursday between 3pm and 9am from March to October (clocks go back)
• Weekends: Friday 3pm/4pm through to Monday 9am/10am*
• Bank holidays: 3pm/4pm the day before until 9am/10am the day after*

*Dependent on seasonality (as explained above)

Friendly hours credit should only be used as a last resort and you will need to repay what you have used during these hours, emergency credit, standing charges and any debt repayments prior to receiving credit onto the meter.

How do I pay back debt?

A set amount of 20% from each top up will be allocated towards any outstanding debt you may have accrued An example is you top up £10.00 and £8.00 will be allocated to your PAYG meter and £2.00 will be allocated towards your debt.

Please keep this in mind and top up with enough credit to cover your energy usage, standing charge and any emergency/friendly hours credits utilised as well as the agreed repayments or your meter will go off.

If you’re having issues with your debt repayment, please call us on 0115 975 8258 and we’ll explore what we can do to support you.

What is a standing charge?

A standing charge is taken from your credit along with the cost of your energy consumption. The purpose of a standing charge is to cover costs such as keeping your property connected to an electricity or gas network, meter maintenance and various other environmental obligations. This is taken once a week

What do I need to do if I’m due to be away from the business for a period of time?

If you’re due to be away from the business for a period of time, ensure that the meter is topped up with enough credit to cover all standing charges, consumption and debt repayments for the duration.  This will ensure your meter doesn’t disconnect. We are not responsible for any loses where a meter disconnects due to running out of credit.

SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH MY METER

Check that you have credit on your meter, if the issues you’re experiencing persist, please contact us on 0115 697 1153 from 9am to 5:30pm.

Between 5:30pm and 09:00am Monday to Friday we work closely with a third party to support you outside of our office opening hours.