British Gas will pay customers for using gas and electricity at these exact times

Households alerted to times when it's much cheaper

British Gas has told millions of customers it will pay them for using gas and electricity at certain times. We're all used to forking out money to energy companies, but British Gas says it will give some back to customers who use gas and electricity outside of peak times.

It's part of an effort to reduce strain on the system by encouraging those who can to use energy at quieter times. These include Sundays, late evenings and overnight.

British Gas said customers with smart meters could get 'rewards', while there are also special tariffs and meters households can get to save cash. The message comes at an important times, with bills to rise for millions from October.

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The energy giant explained: "There’s lots of times when it’s cheaper to use electricity and some energy suppliers are going all out to help their customers benefit from off-peak rates and tariffs or discounts for making changes to when you use electricity. You’ll need a smart meter to take advantage of off-peak electricity times and rewards from your energy supplier.

"That way your energy supplier can see exactly when and how much electricity you’re using. Millions of people are already benefiting from smart meters. If you have an Economy 7 electricity tariff, you may have a dedicated Economy 7 meter or a SMETS2 smart meter that works with your storage heaters."

British Gas continued: "Shift your electricity use to off-peak hours. Save on your electricity bills by shifting energy-intensive tasks like batch cooking, doing the laundry, or charging appliances to off-peak times. Some suppliers offer reduced or discounted rates for using electricity during off-peak electric times.

• PeakSave Sundays offers half-price electricity between 11am and 4pm on Sundays. Half of any electricity used between these times is credited back to your energy bill.
• PeakSave Green Flex offers half-price electricity for one or two hours when there’s likely to be lots of renewable energy available. We let PeakSavers know when there’s an event coming up so they can opt in to join and save.
• PeakSavers earned more than £1.8 million in the first trial and saved enough electricity to power 750,0000 homes for an hour.
• Last winter we paid more than £2 million to our PeakSavers for switching their energy use out of peak times.