So this is the reply I received:
I’ve had a review of your account and can see the reason why your level pay has to go up. Your first two month bill which shows the usage in your property has come in at €278.07. This bill was issued off an actual read so is correct. If you continued to pay €81.00 a month (edit: which is what I signed up for) a balance would build up as you are using more than you are paying for. Due to this it has risen to €110.09. Level pay direct debit is a form of direct debit where regular monthly payments are debited based on your annual consumption. It reviews your last 12 months usage and splits this into 12 equal payments. It aims to spread your bills across the course for the year, therefore avoiding higher bills in winter and lower bills in summer. You build up credit during the summer, and then this is used towards your higher consumption in the winter. The system reviews itself every 2 months based on your usage and account balance, and if your usage is higher or lower than forecasted, the payments will increase or decrease accordingly. If the payments are set to change at all, you will be notified at least 30 days in advance.
I offered to pay weekly to make up the extra so as the bill would be covered - then:
Extra payments on the side wont impact the future payments in the short term the system won’t account for this. What I might advise in this case is to cancel the Level pay section of your direct debit. This would work in that you could make payments against the balance as you are saying and then the remainder would be taken fourteen days after the next bill issues. The downside to this is you would lose the Level Pay discount of two percent.
Can someone explain that last paragraph to me.