British Gas

mtd-142128

We are moving to a rented bungalow in a couple of weeks, we have been informed by the land lord that it is British Gas for both gas & elec.
The landlord was told that the previous tenants had changed the meter to economy 7 without informing them. She has said we should contact BG to get it changed to a normal one, before I do this does anyone know who would have to pay for it if we did change??
We are with Scottish Power where we are now and have been very happy, would we be able to change suppliers if we wanted to??
Thanks

chanz4

Yes you can change suppliers, you can also ask that the meter just be billed on single rate tariff for both reads, but keep the exisiting meter.

Terrylw1

If te previous tenant had an E7 instead of a standard one, it would have required a Sparky to rewire the property to add the off peak consumer unit and tails for the meter to connect to. This would have a so meant the Sparky would need to provide a contractors completion certificate or the engineer wouldn't even connect the meter for safety reasons.

To convert back to standard rate, you would need the Sparky to remove everything on that night consumer unit, but what's the heating in there?

So, I suggest you talk to the landlord again as I don't believe she is correct and is trying to lumper you with the changes...and uts their property so why should you change it to save the landlord a job?! A bit cheeky IMO!

If you want to use Chanz's solution, I would advise caution for a couple of reasons.

1 - anything attached to that off peak consumer unit will still be triggered, so the heating needs to be understood.

2 - this is the really tricky one, one that Bgas are not compliant on and causing customers leaving them to have problems...not all E7 meters are allowed to operate as a 2 rate meter operating as a standard meter. Bgas get around this by adding your units together, but they don't update the distributor because they cant where the meter can only function as E7 in the industries compliance data. So, if they I'd this and you switched to a compliant supplier, they would refuse any standard tariff and it would be right to do so. Customers transferring away fromm Bgas are already hitying this brick wall and having to get meter changes. Bgas, as they know, saved themselves paying ir a metet change. If out want to do this post about it and I'll explain it in more detail as call centres won't really understand this as its an industry speciliast area but i can give you enough to ask the right questions.

spiro

Terrylw1 wrote: »

2 - this is the really tricky one, one that Bgas are not compliant on and causing customers leaving them to have problems...not all E7 meters are allowed to operate as a 2 rate meter operating as a standard meter. Bgas get around this by adding your units together, but they don't update the distributor because they cant where the meter can only function as E7 in the industries compliance data. So, if they I'd this and you switched to a compliant supplier, they would refuse any standard tariff and it would be right to do so. Customers transferring away fromm Bgas are already hitying this brick wall and having to get meter changes. Bgas, as they know, saved themselves paying ir a metet change. If out want to do this post about it and I'll explain it in more detail as call centres won't really understand this as its an industry speciliast area but i can give you enough to ask the right questions.

British Gas are not 'non compliant', part of the problem is that some suppliers can not offer a single rate tariff on a multi-rate meter. The other issue is that Meter Asset Providers charge Suppliers extra charges when they undertake 'unnecessary' meter changes because of their loss in rental income.
The other thing is that there is no real need to swap from a PPM meter to a credit meter to allow you to have a credit tariff all the supplier has to be is set the unit rate on the meter to £0 and it become a credit meter. Thats how Smart will operate.

macman

Don't alter the metering until you know what the heating set up is. They presumably went to E7 for a good reason, it may also suit you better if using night storage heaters and an immersion heater on cheap rate.
However, if the property has a gas supply (and gas CH and DHW), then it's unlikely that E7 will be cost effective.
You are in a deemed contract with BG from day one, you can only switch once you have registered with them first.

jalexa

mtd-142128 wrote: »

We are with Scottish Power where we are now and have been very happy, would we be able to change suppliers if we wanted to??

There are forum reports of Scottish Power E7 tariffs offering the lowest night usage break-even %, but check for yourself on a comparison website.

Until you get a handle on the bungalow space and water heating, the best option is to switch to Scottish Power E7. As macman says from entry you are with British Gas. Make sure you provide a entry reading to British Gas. Once setup with BG you can initiate a switch to Scottish Power right away.

Terrylw1

spiro wrote: »

British Gas are not 'non compliant', part of the problem is that some suppliers can not offer a single rate tariff on a multi-rate meter. The other issue is that Meter Asset Providers charge Suppliers extra charges when they undertake 'unnecessary' meter changes because of their loss in rental income.
The other thing is that there is no real need to swap from a PPM meter to a credit meter to allow you to have a credit tariff all the supplier has to be is set the unit rate on the meter to £0 and it become a credit meter. Thats how Smart will operate.

That's not the issue at all.

What can be billed is clearly stipulated by Market Domain Data (MDD) as managed by Elexon and SVG.

You can only do this where the data supports a Profile Class of 1 or 2 in the data based on the combination if SSC, MTC, PC, LLFC. Not all E7's allow for this.

What a supplier builds to bill customers has to be linked to this data and the industry processes to update the distributor. If you choose to bill a standard rate by adding 2 registers together, that's fine as long as you update the PC from 2 to 1. Why? So that when the customer switches, the gaining supplier understands this. You can also bill the registers separately the same as E7 but to standard rates but the PC update must be made.

If any supplier simply switches the profile of the meter internally without updating the distributor, they are non compliant to MDD is is part of their BSC licence.

When Bgas lose these customers, they get stuck with the new supplier who says they need a meter change and should never have been billed that way. Bgas saved the cost of he engineer but the new supplier has to pay and the customer is inconvenienced.

Other suppliers did it but changed when releasing the error in practice.

Saving costs to avoid following industry process is not relevent to this. Suppliers can always try and charge for meter changes or swallow costs but data & process compliance is strict.

Its been generated complaints for some time...

spiro

Terrylw1 wrote: »

What can be billed is clearly stipulated by Market Domain Data (MDD) as managed by Elexon and SVG.

You can only do this where the data supports a Profile Class of 1 or 2 in the data based on the combination if SSC, MTC, PC, LLFC. Not all E7's allow for this.

On point one what you are billed as a customer is up to your supplier but they will be settled b ased on market data.
On point two Profile Class 2 is determined by CAPABILTY not CAPACITY, so if you have a E7 meter not no night storage heaters you still have to be on PC2. This is an anomoly. Also most customer probably dont realise that if they remove night storage heating they have to advise there supplier not just if they want to change tariff.

Terrylw1

spiro wrote: »

On point one what you are billed as a customer is up to your supplier but they will be settled b ased on market data.
On point two Profile Class 2 is determined by CAPABILTY not CAPACITY, so if you have a E7 meter not no night storage heaters you still have to be on PC2. This is an anomoly. Also most customer probably dont realise that if they remove night storage heating they have to advise there supplier not just if they want to change tariff.

As I said in the last thread where you raised this...

MDD stipulates every available combination of data in the market. Suppliers build their tariffs the match to this bearing in mind the LLFC, AFOYCS, etc determine how settlement is attributed. Supplies can't choose to create and bill what they want, the bill to what the meter is doing and that is based on MDD. In the case of time switch meters, all settings in MDD are used in MOP software to configure the meters.

To address the old argument of "load"...

...MDD allows for this on PC1 because the Switched Load Indicator is set to False instead of True for PC2. So, if the customer has rewired the off peak load away, its no longer operating in s switched load capacity because its just the 24hr power clocking on the off peak register, so its either a meter change away or a PC1 change with the tariff change as long as MDD allows for it.

Check MDD online to see this as managed by Elexon.

If a supplier wants to create a new type of tariff to a meter that doesn't currently exist, so say we wanted an E4.5, the supplier can price up and get sign off internally but yo introduce that to the market to fit the meter, ref first have go submit a MDD change request which goes into the monthly SVG review. All suppliers and distributors have the opportunity to block it.

Terrylw1

spiro wrote: »

The other thing is that there is no real need to swap from a PPM meter to a credit meter to allow you to have a credit tariff all the supplier has to be is set the unit rate on the meter to £0 and it become a credit meter. Thats how Smart will operate.

I presume you are talking about remote configuration?

Would that be the same remote configuration using Actaris that after years of industry black hole problems leading to hundreds of thousands of customer accounts messed up since suppliers did it via Actaris and never updated the MOP.

That was stopped so the suppler could not do it as there was no industry mechanism to ensure it occurred. The only allowance was for suppliers/MOP contracts that incorporated a communication from supplier to MOP to allow the industry meter change process to commence midstream to update Supplier and DC with the changes.

A bit like the dumb down process for Smart, but for non Smart its not allowed under compliance other than where a contract supports the updates.

mtd-142128

Spoken to SP today, will change over from BG and keep the E7 meter
The bungalow has central heating
Thanks for all the info