One of the Big Six energy providers has apologised to customers affected by its malfunctioning smart meters charging them as much as £33,000 for a day's power.

A glitch with SSE's gadgets, which tracks a household's energy usage, warned one consumer they had bust their daily budget by nearly three million per cent.

Complaints began appearing on the company's Twitter page on Friday, with dozens of customers saying their meters were quoting thousands of pounds for 24 hours of gas and electricity.

The energy giant has launched an investigation into the errant devices.

Shocked account holder Mark Umpleby tweeted SSE with a photo that said he had used £33,183 of gas in one day - 2,765,175 per cent over budget.