Pre-payment meters
18.—(1) This regulation applies where an electricity supplier is informed (other than by post) by a domestic customer who takes his supply through a pre-payment meter either that the pre-payment meter is not operating so as to permit a supply to be given to the customer’s premises in the manner for which that meter was designed, or of circumstances suggesting that it is not so operating.
(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), where information is received by an electricity supplier outside working hours it shall be deemed to have been received at the commencement of the next following period of working hours.
(3) Where, within the prescribed period from the applicable date, an appropriate person fails to attend at the premises where the pre-payment meter is installed in order to repair or replace it so as to permit a supply to be given to those premises in the manner for which that meter was designed, the electricity supplier shall, except in any of the circumstances described in paragraph (4), pay to the customer the prescribed sum.
(4) The circumstances described in this paragraph are–
(a)each of the circumstances described in regulation 22;
(b)that the customer requested the electricity supplier not to attend the premises;
(c)that the customer requested the electricity supplier not to restore the supply; and
(d)that the pre-payment meter was found to be operating in the manner for which it was designed.
(5) In this regulation, “appropriate person” means a person employed or authorised by an electricity supplier to repair and replace pre-payment meters.