British Gas slaps small business with £32,000 bill following meter error

A faulty meter ran up a £32,000 bill for a small business following a catalogue of errors on the suppliers’ part, a news report found.

The business owner contacted a major national newspaper after being hit with the outrageously high bill. She explained that the business premises comprises five rooms with a space roughly the size of a typical two-bedroom flat. Between June 2003 to March 2009, the company’s bills amounted to £1,769, or an average of £300 per annum.

Nevertheless, after receiving their last bill dated February 17 2009, the company received no other bills from British Gas. However, a few years later, they’ve received 14 invoices covering the period from November 20 2008, to May 8 2014, with an amount showing due of £32,298.

While the whole story had a very positive outcome for the business owner (British Gas acknowledged their mistake and only charged the business a significantly more modest 119 pounds in the end) it proves once more the usefulness of having an Energy Management System that delivers enhanced energy monitoring capabilities installed.

Efficient and effective Building Energy Management Systems are capable of delivering extensive monitoring and control options, compared to basic controls. They typically employ data from a variety of sources (boiler flow and return sensors, internal and external temperature sensors, occupancy sensors, humidity sensors, etc.), and enable the perfect optimization of a building’s boiler-based central heating system.

The end result is that users still get a very good level of comfort, while in the same time saving energy and money in the process.

If you’d like to find out more about the savings enabled by the HeatingSave Building Energy Management System, just contact our dedicated product team, they’ll be more than happy to answer all of your questions and queries.