Usage vs what I’m being charged

I’m with EON on there Drive tariff

My smart meter is showing double the cost of daily usage, yet doing some basic calcs shows I should be paying around £2.50 per day give or take.

Is it me and my calcs? Or is there an issue with dual rate tariffs and how these are charged?

I read somewhere else on line if the smart meter can’t get a read, then billing defaults to the day rate for the 24hr period, which based on what I’m being charged would make sense.

I have raised with their customer service team, but they are not the latest at getting back to you.

I’ve read this can be a little inaccurate? But the I’m paying about double of the larger number

Midlands_Solar My smart meter is showing double the cost of daily usage,

I wouldn't believe the cost on the Smart Meter - only your bill will be 'correct'. The only values you can trust on it are the meter readings.

Does the Smart Meter show the correct tariff details? Often the Smart Meter isn't updated when you change tariff.

If you want to work out what you'll be charged try signing up to https://data.n3rgy.com or similar which will allow you to download the Smart Meter's consumption and export data which you can put into a spreadsheet.

when my smart meter stopped giving regular half hour data to to Octo (i had been reprting problems for 6 months but it was like talking to the wall)
I was on Flux and they pointed out that the contract says "if we cant get half hour data we will bill you standard rates".
I charge my battery every night on half price electric and that gets me through 24 hrs with a bit of sun during the day .
They were going to charge all summer at day rate plus not pay any export.

Please follow this thread
I downloaded all the data , inserted the correct tariffs and said "lets talk to the Ombudsman". I have given you my evidence, where is yours. We agreed some correct numbers.
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/2881-report-data-download-as-excel-file

I logged into

https://data.n3rgy.com

As had signed up a couple of weeks back, and to my horror I'm as I expected being charged a flat rate 24/7

I have immediately emailed EON back on a thread I have going with them on this.

Their response time is appallingly slow! I will wait a couple more weeks and if no resolution and then go to the ombudsman

Midlands_Solar I think you have two sets of problems with your calculations:

1. The in home display almost certainly doesn’t know about your time of day pricing. Have a look at what the unit rate it is set to and see if it changes overnight
2. The data you see in the GivEnergy portal is based upon 5 minute consumption snapshots that are then assumed to be the same for the entire 5 minute period. You need to use the meter data in the GE portal.

I don’t know whether Eon charge at the standard rate if they can’t get any half hour meter reads. Octopus certainly have that in their terms and conditions. but you’d need to look at what Eon say.

The most accurate way to calculate this is to get you meter reads from n3rgy and price it up yourself. You’ll also see if there is a fundamental issue with missing data.

Midlands_Solar I logged into

https://data.n3rgy.com

As had signed up a couple of weeks back, and to my horror I'm as I expected being charged a flat rate 24/7

No, not quite right. N3rgy just know what value your meter touprice is set to which is why your in home display is saying you’re price is too high.

The billing is then done by Eon using the meter reads and the correct price for your time of day tariff. Only Eon know what that is, you’ve just proven that they don’t share it with the DCC and so why your in home display is wrong.

geoffreycoan I don’t know whether Eon charge at the standard rate if they can’t get any half hour meter reads. Octopus certainly have that in their terms and conditions. but you’d need to look at what Eon say.

For a straight-forward tariff with fixed times, there's no reason for an energy company to rely on half-hourly readings - it's entirely possible (and sensible) to instead use the functionality of the smartmeter itself to use different registers for the different times of day. I believe my own smartmeter is set up with two registers, though I'm not sure what the exact time splits are. When I was on Go, and Octopus missed a few HH readings, they billed me on E7 rates, since the smartmeter was reporting two different usages. It's possible that Octopus set up the smartmeter this way because that allows the smartmeter to tell the IHD to display two different rates ?

I think the problem with Octopus is that, for Agile, they do need half-hourly readings. And, presumably for simplicity, they've made that the basis for all their smart tariffs. Rather that using HH for Agile and smartmeter registers for the simpler smart tariffs.

DD A SMETS2 electricity meter doesn't store 30 minute meter readings, it stores consumption data.

Nor does it calculate 24 hour meter readings unless the customer has specifically opted into one day/30 day meter readings for privacy reasons. In that case it no longer stores 30 minute consumption data, it either stores 24 hour consumption data OR 30 day consumption data. Its not an either/or situation, you only get one set of data stored on the meter.

Anything missing and they can't calculate energy used over the course of 24 hours. Simple as that. That's why Octopus require 30 minute data on ALL smart tariffs.

Gas meters don't work the same, presumably because there weren't any forseeable ToU tariffs (which would be politically acceptable) at the time the spec was written.

Having looked at our data (pulled from DCC) I find no missing 30 minute consumption data for electricity. For gas there are about 200 entries where there's no 30 minute data - those don't cause Octopus any problems because they don't care when the gas was used, just that it was used.

I'm not surprised the gas meter has occasional missing data as its on the other side of the garage, with 2 x 400mm thick cavity walls between it and the comms module - oh and whatever is in the garage, like a battery/inverter, which probably does quite a good job of attenuating RF.

Vestas I'm not sure if we're talking about quite the same thing? Smartmeters have cumulative counters. I think they can be configured to use from 1 to 48 ? If there's one configured for usage between midnight and 7am, and another for 7am to midnight, then all you need is the meter reading at the start and end of any period, and you know how much peak and off-peak energy was used over that period. You don't know exactly when, but for a straightforward tariff you don't need to.

Octopus Go could have been done like that. But they don't.

See https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/your-energy-meter/how-to-read-your-smart-electricity-meter/?#! - I know it's simplistic, but at least gives us a common basis. This describes how to read an E7 meter, with two import registers IMP R01 and IMP R02

The meter stores 30 minute consumption data. It doesn't store the absolute meter reading with a timestamp. That's what I'm trying to get across (badly).

Might be helpful to think of it like a car - you may have lots of data available about fuel consumption, trip times etc which update regularly. What you don't (generally) have is the ability to go back 23 days (for example) and see what the mileage on the car was at 6am.

Your "counters" just store the consumption data in a different way so that it can be pulled by DCC at a later time. You don't get to pull data as and when you please for obvious reasons - imagine millions of requests for meter readings at the same time each day.

Edit - economy 7 etc is a different ballgame & best ignored as meters have to be preconfigured for that these days. Its not going to continue that way for much longer.

Edit2 - if you're on Octopus Agile then take a look at your bill. There isn't a meter reading on it because they don't pull that, not even for billing. Also the reason they ask for a meter reading/photo when you join.

geoffreycoan

The home display shows the 28.1p tariff rate above, but no other tariffs for night. I have emailed a couple of other contacts at /EON I was dealing with as part of the installation, hopefully, they'll come back to me soon.

I also hope to be back date credited for the wrong tariff, but we'll see!

I am now on a preconfigured (dumb) Eco7 meter from Octo.
It has 2 registers for import - one for standard day hours and one for night off peak hours,
It has a single export register.
I must manually submit readings every month.
This is the only tariff and way I can get off peak electric to charge the battery and get paid for export .
I really want to be back on Flux but with a flakey signal I cant.
Waiting to see what they do next week.

Midlands_Solar The tariffs on the meter/IHD are usually only regularly updated on flat rate billing IME.

Anything else often relates to the last time the meter/IHD was restarted/updated - for example our meter got restarted during a 10.8p/unit Agile slot and that's what the IHD stays at now.

Edit - I have no idea what it was set to before that, must have been one of the really high Agile slots in early December because it was over a tenner/day. Meaningless really other than it usually goes blank when the smart meter is restarted, which is sadly now a useful thing to know 🙂

I got this back from EON this afternoon, I'll be keeping a close eye on the https://data.n3rgy.com portal in April

Midlands_Solar I'm not clear where this table of consumption numbers has come from. Is it from n3rgy ? I'm a little surprised that they can see information about prices - I'd have thought that would be between you and EON. Unless perhaps n3rgy are taking tariff information from the smartmeter, and EON haven't bothered to store the correct tariff information on the smartmeter (from which it can be relayed to the IHD for display). As has been mentioned, I think: any tariff data stored on the smartmeter is for informational purposes only - the actual billing will be calculated by EON using consumption and tariff information.

DD

Yes that's correct it came from the n3rgy portal, it matches the tariff rate on the in house display meter

Midlands_Solar

We have the EON Next Drive tariff at home. It works similarly to what you have described in that the bill we receive is different to the smart meter monthly readings to a degree. As I recall on the description and small print I read before signing up, they warned that this could/would be the case but promised the bill would be accurate even if the smart meter display was not.

When we signed up it took several days before the tariff info on the smart meter was updated but even then and to this day the TOU switchover time is not correct making the daytime portion 30 minutes longer and starting 30 minutes sooner. However, true to their promise I have been billed correctly each month recognising the promised start and end time of the TOU and the rates.

I do not know why it is done this way but I was told that it has to do with the DNS dictating what time the TOU change occurs in my area but I am not sure if that is the case or not.

killythebid

That's very reassuring to know, thank you for the post

killythebid

Is the billing in the mobile app correct do you know? As again the figures there seem to be 50% more than I'm expecting

Midlands_Solar I generally do not use the mobile app but a quick look just now means I can see the same bill as I can online via my tablet. Is there a particular function you are looking at?

killythebid

Sorry I meant the EON billing app, does the daily usage bills match the billed amount in the GivEnergy app?

Midlands_Solar Yes that is the app I assumed you meant. The daily usage figures do not tally with the Givenergy values but I would not expect them to. In any case, there is only one measure of how much electricity you are consuming and that of course is your meter. The Givenergy values are at best a guestimate.