In contrast to the on-going roll out of smart metering in the UK where the prepayment intelligence rests within the device itself, other markets and use cases require control of the device to be held centrally. This, coupled with market intelligence that indicates prepayment is gaining a greater foothold as the payment option of choice for the ever-increasing number of ‘Energy Savvy’ consumers, gives utilities companies another option for engagement with their customers.
Historically, prepayment metering has been more expensive to deploy, customers with prepayment meters carried a higher cost to serve, and since it was often used to reclaim previously accrued debt, it carried a stigma that obscured the benefits to the consumer. However, there is now a train of thought that as fuel is being paid for in advance, it should be cheaper than traditional credit metering, both for Energy Suppliers and for the end consumer. It gives Energy Suppliers in both primary and secondary markets opportunities to innovate to give this new breed of customers a wider choice of tariffs and more flexible ways to pay for their energy use.
Either utilised as a stand-alone module or easily integrated into an existing IT estate, our System Based Prepayment solution can be hosted on-premise or in the Cloud. In addition, it can work with any device with a remote disconnect switch, plus other metered devices with communication capability such as heat and water meters.
Our solution includes devices that already have prepayment intelligence built-in, giving a best-of-both-worlds approach and allowing the payment option to be chosen based on the consumer’s needs, not on the meter that happens to be installed at their property.
System Based Prepayment gives Suppliers the means to deliver the following benefits;
For the Consumer
- Virtual Credit Balance, so you always know when you need to top up
- Extra guard against fuel poverty as you are in control of how much you spend
- Credit ‘predicter’ to assist in fuel budgeting
- Bill Estimator
- Credit limit facility
- Options around lifestyle choices, feeling of being more in control
- Reduced chance of falling into debt, portal notifications
- Energy efficiency improvement through a customer portal
For the System Owner, Landlord, Utility
- Proactive reports and business information for Low Credit and Emergency Credit activation
- Remote energisation / de-energisation
- Easy switch between pre-pay and credit (post pay)
- Lower device costs
- Not limited to Gas & Electricity
- Lower cost to serve
- Reducing energy theft and historically bad payers leads to bad debt reduction
- Cash flow improvement
- Energy efficiency and demand / response improvement
- Flexibility and wider range of customer offerings
- Provide new Customer offering/service without requiring additional new meter/infrastructure investment.