The looming sceptre of an energy bill can come as a nasty surprise to us at the best of times, but when one person's meter read that they had spent £34,775 on gas in a single day, they realised that the problem was not their usage.

One of the Big Six energy companies, SSE, saw its customers speak out on Twitter after their smart meters read that they had gone over their daily budget by more than 730,470%.

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The devices, which are designed to track energy usage in real-time, reported that customers had spent between £9,500 to £35,000 in a 24-hour period, with the glitch making several worried customers confused about the skyrocketing figures.

One disgruntled customer said that her smart meter was "measuring the [energy of] the whole town".

According to data from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, in 2014 UK households spent, on average, £1,370/year ($1,685/yr) on electricity and gas fuel supplies – or £26.36 a day.

"The issue will be investigated as a matter of urgency and no customer will be charged the extra amounts resulting from errors with the smart meters," an SSE spokesperson told The Telegraph.

"We would like to apologise to any customers if this has caused distress."

An £11bn ($13.53bn) scheme will see smart meters rolled out in every home in the country by 2020.