British Gas offers smart meter users free electricity at weekends

Centrica-owned British Gas is offering customers with smart meters eight hours of free electricity at the weekend.

With one of the company’s new Dual Fuel FreeTime tariffs, customers will get free electricity every Saturday or Sunday from 0900 BST to 1700 BST depending on the tariff chosen.

In order to get the tariff – which is fixed until March 2018 – customers will need to agree for a British Gas smart meter to be installed and to manage their account online.

Smart meters work with a smart energy monitor that can be placed anywhere in the home to show how much energy is being used and an indication of how much it’s costing, meaning customers can see how much it costs to boil the kettle or leave the heating on at night and keep track of their spending.

The meters take accurate readings of energy use every half hour, daily or once a month, depending on what the customer prefers.

The readings are then sent to British Gas with wireless technology such as mobile phones, giving an accurate energy bill without having to send meter readings.