Troubleshooting Smart meters & Energy suppliers

I appreciate this is probably not the correct forum but TBH I am not sure where to go 🤷‍♂️

I have been trying to get Octopus Energy to re-connect my SMETS1 meter to the local distribution network so that I can out my energy usage (electricity - Import/Export & Gas usage) since the data stopped being available online on the day of the Crowdstrike (Octopus/Bright - Glowmarkt/Bright app).

I have been trying to get OE to reconnect since July. It feels like they either don't want to (i.e. I just leave OE and get someone else to sort it out) or they are inept as they have sent out two engineers, the 1st of which said it was an old meter SMETS1 and should be replaced and didn't even bother trying to connect it to the network. The 2nd tried and failed and then wouldn't replace them as it wasn't on his job list. I now have a complaint running and have escalated it to the Ombudsman, but I feel like this is a futile exercise, and I am unsure what/how to resolve it.

When I look at the meters themselves, there seems to be adequate signal strength, so I doubt it is a network signal issue. I wonder if it is an issue at the receiving end, in which case it probably isn't an OE [problem.](https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZlr4CZt0vpgFMp1WYyumPbiIokq8oIgznX & https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZgr4CZyzilwAuaYYbSOtM1umpnc0rsVhw7)

Any thoughts, advice, or, better still, solutions are gratefully received.

ryanna2599
Outside my area of knowledge, sorry. But you may find a wider audience (and even some Octopus staff) on their forum - https://forum.octopus.energy/

ryanna2599 There's someone on here who was in a similar position and took it all the way to the ombudsman, who forced Octopus to fix the issue.

Octopus customer service is appallingly bad now (complaints up over 1800% in the last 3 years) so don't mess about, take it to the ombudsman because that's all Octopus take notice of.

Vestas & PianSom Thanks both

ryanna2599 I had a look at what Octopus claim to be doing regarding fixing the 50,000 formal complaints made last quarter regarding smart meters, so lets go through them:

"Developed industry-leading smart tariffs to continue to reduce energy consumption at peak times and provide a super low-cost supply for EV users."

Requires a working smart meter.

"Our installation teams are working with our frontline energy specialists to ensure we have up-to-date information available to deliver the very best customer service."

Meaningless crap.

"We are working closely with the meter manufacturers and industry leaders to make sure that any metering problems can be quickly identified, resolved and fixes put in place."

Doesn't fix Octopus own systems, which are very broken indeed.

"Developed a smart meter auto resolution architecture so we'll know there is a problem and be able to resolve it before our customers are aware."

Doesn't work if its true, which I doubt.

"Expanding our expertise into the world of heat pumps to deliver a carbon-neutral heating system for our customers with price-efficient smart tariffs."

Which has what to do with smart meter issues?

The tl;dr is that Octopus don't actually think that smart meters should have anything to do with them and someone else should fix problems. Unfortunately ALL of the problems we had/have are ENTIRELY due to Octopus' systems failing to work/incompetence at Octopus.

Before anyone says "they're fine on X/facebook", customers shouldn't have to sign up to foreign media run by ultra-right wing racists to receive competent customer service!

Vestas
Probably me. It took 2.5 years to get my Octopus smart meters "smart" and only by elevating it to the Ombudsman.
The meters went in and for 2.5 years I had to submit manual readings. Was sort of OK as i was on Eco7 and only had panels. When I added a battery I needed half hourly billing and needed the meters working.
Over the 2.5 years i had about 10 visits with every explanation under the sun .
My meter is under the stairs on an outside wall so should not be a major problem, other than where I live is near Skipton and uses the (rubbish) Arqiva RF network (not GSM - there is s telephone mast in clear site of the house)
Eventually after going to the Ombudsman and repeatedly posting on Twitter (not something I am very good at) a lady from Octopus called Carla got involved. She arranged for a new comms hub with dual band antenna to be fitted (this just clips to the front of the meter and has an extension cable - apparently very useful for basement meter installations). It worked straight away and has been fine for 7 months. I think the dual band may be RF and GSM and only gets used when the DCC (Arqiva in this case) fail to get their network fully operational. I think she had to pull some strings to allow me to be on this hub, but because the DCC had been so useless she was allowed.
Smart meter, Octopus Home Mini and gas smart meter all work as well now.

British Gas were the same when mine broke, it took them a year to sort it, they ended up changing the gas and electricity meters, and a week later they stopped sending data again.

They only fixed it when I refused to send them manual meter readings and stopped paying my bills because they were estimated.

Three years ago I finally had a smart meter installed by Octopus because Greg Jackson was the only person who could explain the very tricky situation with SMETS1 & 2 and the lack of final specification by the Government (Octopus technical blog). As it was, when Octopus turned up, I mentioned that I was going to have solar and batteries he said: "Oh you won't want this meter, then" and went back to his van to find another one.
So I would reckon that Octopus are doing their best in a horrendous situation with multiple versions of smart meters that don't work for a variety of reasons, not helped by the Government forcing installation quotas on all the electricity companies who don't know what they are doing, at least at a local level. Victims of their own success, Octopus now don't have enough trained engineers to cope with demand, but I would still back them all the way.

ryanna2599

With my previous supplier it took a year to get my smart meters working (OVO). 4 replacements. They worked for a week or so at a time and then just stopped almost at exactly the same number of days later! Last meters had an extra booster aerial added. Then it finally worked for longer. - Although I’m doubtful that that actually did anything extra because I always had a good signal.
It was months and months of the same; Follow their useless home trouble shooting; ie, “is the gas meter within x meters of the electric meter” - yes. “Are all the lights flashing” - yes. “Is there a good signal in your area?” - yes.
Then contact the company that installed the meters:
“We’re getting the data, yes it’s working no problems our end”.
Contact OVO: “we’re not getting any data”.
Hmmmm…. Repeat. It was some sort of issue with the company in between both of them not doing the commissioning properly. I asked the last meter installers and they said it is very common for them to just <cough, cough> stop working after about a week. I don’t believe it was ever a smart meter problem. Just a handling of the data/ commissioning problem. Easier for them to just replace the whole thing and try again I reckon.

The problem is that one company is responsible for installing the meters and the comissioning, another for the data received and another for passing it on to Octopus apparently.

I don’t think it’s actually OVO or Octopus that are/were the problem. Although OVO’s awful customer service didn’t add to the joy.

Good luck.

SteveCook thanks Steve very useful. I don't suppose you have and are willing to share Carla's email address at OE?

Anyone listening to Octopus blaming DCC 100% of the time would do well to go here and create an account:

https://www.n3rgy.com/consumer/

We were able to prove Octopus were lying about DCC being the issue. The issue is that Octopus systems (Kraken) can't cope with pulling data from DCC reliably.

Also https://homebrew.n3rgy.com/ is useful.

Again we were able to prove Octopus were lying when they claimed they hadn't buggered up a security cert update - they let it lapse, tried to backdate the cert change and broke the meter (for the second time), requiring me to get the local network operator* to come round and restart the meter.

*they're on the estate installing meters in new-builds anyway.

JasonF I feel that I may have to go down that root, I am also aware that the meter only holds data for 13 months so if by April 2025 they haven't resolved it I am going to have to have this resolved or essentially I have lost all the export data (which for OE will be I am sure quite convenient).

To that end has anyone used their givenergy data to justify Import & export to resolve a billing issue?

ryanna2599 @SteveCook did. They wouldn't accept the data.

Pete UK That is the major problem; no one organisation is responsible (It's like the Railway industry, but at least there you can claim for delays or cancellations). The energy industry needs something equivalent to essentially keep them in check.

ryanna2599 thanks Steve very useful. I don't suppose you have and are willing to share Carla's email address at OE?

Hi
Sorry but I never got any direct any email address. Everything seems to go to/come from "hello@octopus.energy". I think they must have some clever way of routing mails at their end.

Vestas No surprise but at least something to use with the ombudsman

ryanna2599 That is the major problem; no one organisation is responsible (It's like the Railway industry, but at least there you can claim for delays or cancellations). The energy industry needs something equivalent to essentially keep them in check.

The problem is the franchised DCC operation arranged by Capita (couldn't run a bath).
In the south Telefonica use GSM to connect the meters to the suppliers (Oct, Ovo etc) , but in the North Arqiva won the franchise and chose to use RF (not very good in the hilly Pennines and Dales). I can't even get Radio 2!!
At one point I was told RAF Fylingdales was messing up my meter signals. I live 50 miles away with Bradford, Leeds and York between me and there!

SteveCook - "hello@octopus.energy" aka the bottomless pit of despair

ryanna2599 The things that really got traction was my Ombudsman compliant and numerous Twitter posts about Octopus inaction/incompetence.
Joe Public cannot take the DCC to task as there is no contract with them.
The Joe Public contract is with the energy supplier.
One must moan loudly about the energy supplier and then they moan to the DCC.
Octopus spoke to the DCC a number of times in my case and were always told "all OK".
It was only when Carla got the Dual Band hub installed that things worked. I presume my signal no longer goes via Arqiva but by some other route (GSM?)

https://www.speakev.com/threads/new-smart-meter-cant-find-a-radio-signal-north-anyone-else.155426/page-4

SteveCook Its probably worthwhile clarifying who does what here for people new to this:

Your meter connects to one of two telecoms companies. In Scotland and parts of England that's Arquiva (the company that runs the BBC transmitters/masts) and its done (usually) via radio at 420-450MHz so its long-range. In the rest of England/Wales its VMO2 who supply the 3G network.

From there a company/organisation called Smart DCC aggregates (pulls) the data from all smart meters. This is done mainly for security reasons but also for technical reasons such as not overloading the radio/GSM links by staggering "pull" requests, which are normally done once a day.

Your energy supplier then pulls the data from Smart DCC and its here where things often fall apart. Interestingly it doesn't appear to be (directly) the fault of Smart DCC in most cases, it happens when a bulk collection of customer meter data by the energy provider fails and isn't re-requested as it should be.

Its important to note that there's no incentive for your energy supplier to fix things as they'll usually make more money from you by NOT fixing the problem. They get fined for not installing enough new smart meters so the only "fine" they get for not fixing existing meters is a visit to the ombudsman (they get charged regardless of outcome).

Thanks Vestas my feeling is there is some sort of issue in this case at the Smart DCC end because it's not just Octopus Energy who cannot access the data but also Glowmarkt/Bright app and also the Citizens advice smart meter connection checker unless you know why none of them could see my meters?

But I fully agree with you that there is absolutely no incentive for the Energy supplier to resolve the issue and as both you and @SteveCook have suggested I have raised the complaint with the Ombudsman and they have as of today agreed there is a valid complaint to be resolved so now the 6-8 week process begins

ryanna2599 To that end has anyone used their givenergy data to justify Import & export to resolve a billing issue?

I’d Take a photo of your export meter every month if I was you, get the whole thing in including the serial number (you might have to toggle between screens to get the right reading).

Forgot to add. Keep submitting manual readings as well.

For those who read this and end up in a similar position:

• Keep a note of all interactions with your energy supplier (emails/calls)
• raise a complaint ASAP if they are not resolving your connection issue, as you need to wait 8 weeks until you can contact the Energy Ombudsman
• https://www.energyombudsman.org/?
• and as Pete UK says, take regular photos of import & export readings on your meter regularly (although it won't help with variable/flexible tariffs

Just as a counterpoint. BG installed our smart meter and utterly failed to do anything about it for a year, after it pooped itself a few weeks later. I switched to Octopus with a broken meter, and they had it running again in a couple of weeks.

Octopus email team have been pretty useless, but support from twitter messaging has been great.

I'm in the same situation with Octopus, broken meter since June, meter replaced and electric readings started coming through a few weeks ago. But still missing my export from June/July and my gas meter still doesn't work.
I've actually been through the meter replacement process twice this year.

Support are absolutely useless and try to constantly gaslight me in to thinking the meters are working.
I've escalated and raised complaints with Octopus but it doesn't seem to do anything at all.
I've called them probably 20 times now and it's a huge waste of my time.

It was only when this antenna (dual band hub?) was fitted did my gas meter go "smart" and i got decent half hourly electricity readings. Took 3 years of moaning and I think 12 new/different meters to be fitted. (24 in total as everytime the electric was changed, so was the gas and I think as they left the house they went to the skip)
The hub (i think) is the white box on the front of the meter. The antenna is the whit strip thing top right of the image

FOLLOW UP: Well as advised by SteveCook I went via the Ombudsman root and this did stimulate Octopus to fix the issue. Both Gas and electricity SMETS1 meters were replaced with SMETS2 meters.

I now have electricity and gas readings once again but still waiting for the export readings. Octopus say this can take up to 14 days or do I need to re-register the NEW MPAN number?

ryanna2599 I don't think you need a new MPAN - I believe that number is effectively connected to your supply point (house) - MPAN "Meter Point Access Number" - my import MPAN didn't change when my meter was upgraded

You do need an MPAN CW , but from my research, and from what I have read, the MPAN is just a reference number for the electricity generation system and is meter-independent.

ryanna2599 Agreed, you need an export MPAN, but the OP was asking whether a new MPAN was needed because the meter was upgraded - which I don't beleive is required

Sorry CW yes no new MPAN