Tens of thousands disconnect their own power supplies
| bbc.com 11 Oct 2018 at 05:29 |
Business
Energy regulator Ofgem said it was so concerned that it wanted further evidence on the scale of the problem.
In the last year, 70,000 people on pre-payment meters "self-disconnected" from their electricity supply for a period of at least three hours, Ofgem said.
About 80,000 people stopped paying for their gas.
While most of those may simply have forgotten to top up their credit - or may have failed to realise they were low - Ofgem said about one in 10 of those on pre-payment meters cut themselves off.
Earlier this year, Citizens Advice estimated that as many as 140,000 householders were going without gas or electricity, because they couldn t afford to top up their meters.
Of those, 56% were left with cold homes, while 35% had insufficient light.
Some 4.5 million households in the UK have pre-payment meters, often because of a poor credit history.
After criticism that they faced higher energy charges than everyone else, the regulator imposed a cap on their bills in April 2017.
The most they currently have to pay is £1,136 a year.
The Ofgem figures were released as part of its annual state of the energy market report, which also found that:
