Your energy bills during the coronavirus lockdown

These times are truly tough for many UK business owners, with some being obliged to shut their doors and others seeing a drastic downturn. I know that the uncertain outlook and the virus itself are causing a great deal of stress.

At SSE Business Energy we’re doing what we can to help our customers, while adapting to the situation ourselves. And knowing what’s going on helps us to serve you better.

Keeping us updated

If your business has closed, or reduced or changed its operations because of coronavirus, please let us know. It’s really important, for example, that you tell us if you’re not using any electricity or gas. To help us to help you, do get in touch and give us as much information as possible, including details of how your business has been impacted as well as your account number and meter point number (MPAN/MPRN).

Payment

We’ve also put in place payment processes to help customers who are in financial crisis because of the pandemic. There’s no need to cancel your direct debit, which could affect your credit score. Instead, please talk to our team and provide as much information as possible so we can run through solutions with you. If you’re struggling with cash flow to pay your bills, you can contact us at businesspayments@sse.com.

To ensure your business isn’t paying for energy it doesn’t need to be using, turn off non-essential lighting, appliances and so on. If you have AMR, SMETS2, or half-hourly meters installed, you can sign up for SSE Clarity today. Included with all our smart metering packages, our free online energy management platform is an easy way to start taking control of your energy consumption and spend.

Billing

Customers might receive a bill that’s too high where we’ve been unable to input more accurate energy consumption figures. To help avoid overbilling, please submit meter readings monthly. You can do this online here. If you email your meter readings, we’ll need your account number and MPAN or MPRN to record them correctly.

Disconnection

One thing I particularly wanted to highlight was supply disconnection. Our systems automatically generate some letters to customers, including disconnection letters where customers have not paid their bills. We’re working hard to stop these going out, but this might take a little time. We are not currently carrying out disconnections, except in emergencies. If you have received a cut off notice, please let us know.

We’ll notify customers when the process returns to normal. We will always work with customers in debt to try to avoid the need to disconnect supplies, by agreeing suitable payment terms.

Staying in touch

It’s important to keep in touch at this changeable time. Right now, email is the best way to reach us, because most of our teams are working from home and our phone lines may be limited or busier than normal. You can use our contact us form.

To enable more flexibility in our systems, prevent us sending incorrect communications and make it easier for you to manage your account, we’re investing in a new business platform which is on schedule to start migrating our customers in 2021. You’ll benefit from better service tailored to your business, from account set-up to metering and making it simple to get accurate bills on demand.

During the Covid-19 crisis, you can find the latest updates here.