Want to ditch gas for good? Here’s how we can help

We’re hard at work building a world run entirely on green electricity, and as we move closer to that goal, more people are asking us to disconnect their gas supply. So we thought we’d put together a blog explaining how we can help remove your gas meter and cap your supply safely.

Moving away from gas

As people move away from burning gas to heat their homes and their water - ‘electrifying’ these processes instead - we expect (and encourage) more customers to start disconnecting their gas supplies.

At the moment though, this process is still pretty rare, which means there’s not much widespread knowledge about how to organise this, how much it costs or who’s responsible for doing it.

Who is responsible for stopping my gas supply?

What about the gas pipes that connect to my property?

The Gas Network Operator (GNO) is responsible for the gas pipe that comes from the gas main into the property. Some time after your gas has been disconnected, they’ll likely visit your property to check things out, and might decide to disconnect the gas pipe that runs into the house from the gas main in the street.

If you ever needed an existing gas pipe in your property to be moved or removed (for example if building work is being carried out and the existing pipe is in the way), you need to contact your local GNO to do this work. Find out who your Gas Network Operator is here.

Will you ever charge for disconnecting my gas supply?

The electricity and gas meters in homes around the country aren’t owned by customers, or us – they’re actually owned by businesses called Meter Asset Providers (or MAPs).

They charge us (and other energy suppliers) a monthly rental fee for your meter, and in some instances they do charge suppliers for removing a meter, because they’ll lose out on future income.

Right now, because we get a fairly small number of these requests, we’re shouldering these charges and removing the meters free of charge for customers. But as it becomes more common, we might need to start charging for the removal of gas meters, not just to cover the MAP’s costs but also to cover the cost for the engineer’s time. We’ll try and avoid this and will of course let you know about any costs before booking or carrying out the work.

Important note: in the majority of cases the removal of the meter is fairly simple. However, sometimes there may be other works involved in capping the supply that will require the network to make alterations to your supply. In those cases we do not cover the additional costs incurred by that third party, but the work we do to remove and cap the meter will still be covered for free.

We’re working together with MAPs on a long-term solution, so that as gas capping becomes more common, there’s no cost barrier for someone looking to go green and get rid of their gas supply.