If you are not home when the meter reader visits, you will be sent a letter asking you to submit your readings to us. Act quickly to avoid an estimate of your consumption. You have everything to gain.
Having your meter readings once a year allows us to calculate your actual energy consumption. In this way, your energy supplier bills your future monthly payments on the basis of this actual consumption. If we do not know your meter readings, we make an estimate ourselves. It is then forwarded to your supplier. You can ask for a correction, but it is better to avoid this wasted time.
The estimation of your consumption: only one way to avoid it
If you are away when the meter reader visits, the only way to avoid an estimate of your consumption is to submit your meter readings to us.
To avoid being billed on the basis of an estimate, submit your meter readings to us within 15 days of our letter being sent.
At present, only the reading of your meters ensures that what you pay is as close as possible to your actual consumption.
The estimate: a basis for your future bills
If there is no access when our meter reader visits and no response from you, your supplier will use our estimate of your consumption. This estimate will serve as a basis for drawing up your future payment bills and your annual statement.
These bills may therefore not reflect your actual consumption during the past year. Indeed, certain factors may have had an impact on your energy consumption. These include, for example:
- Your efforts to save energy;
- A change in household composition;
- A long absence.
All these changes, specific to your situation, are obviously not taken into account if we estimate your consumption.
Our advice: contact your supplier as quickly as possible if your billing seems unrealistic compared to your actual consumption.
Our method for estimating your energy consumption
We use several parameters as a basis for estimating your energy consumption:
- The consumption history from previous years;
- Your consumption profile according to an indicator called "SLP" (Synthetic Load Profile);
- Climatic factors, to estimate your gas consumption.
Although we follow a strict method, an estimate may differ from your actual consumption.
Request a correction of our estimate: 2 steps
Following our estimate, your supplier will send you your annual statement bill and your monthly payment bills. Do the amounts billed seem unrealistic compared to your actual consumption? Ask for a correction of our estimate.
The 2 steps of this process are:
- Take your own reading of your energy meters;
- Ask your energy supplier to correct your monthly payments and instalments and your annual bill on the basis of the readings
Did you know? As a consumer, you have two obligations:
- To check that the metering data on your bill matches your consumption;
- To notify your supplier if there is a clear discrepancy.
This obligation to check that billing and consumption match is indicated in the official technical regulations of the Brussels-Capital Region.
Extract from Article 215 of the Technical Regulations for Electricity and Article 174 of the Technical Regulations for Gas.
"All users of the distribution system are expected to check that the metering data on the basis of which they are billed match their consumption. If they notice an obvious error, distribution systems users shall inform their supplier. Any supplier informed by a distribution system user or that suspects an obvious error in the independent metering data shall immediately inform the distribution system operator [...]"