4. Prepayment

In the vast majority of cases, customers pay for their electricity consumption after receiving a bill corresponding to the values read on the meter indexes, or an interim bill based on estimated consumption. However, there is another method of payment, which involves prepayment of consumption using specific, relatively sophisticated electricity meters equipped with a cut-off device that can interrupt the customer's electricity supply; these meters are known as prepayment meters.

The principle is as follows. The customer buys a consumption credit from the electricity distributor, in the form of tokens, a payment card, a sequence of coded digits or similar, which he then inserts into his meter. When the consumption credit is exhausted, the electricity supply is interrupted until the meter is topped up with a certain amount of credit. For the system to operate efficiently,...