validation of final readings

lamanva

During my last two changes of energy supplier i have come across a delay caused by the "validation" of final readings. My searches have not found any info on this validation process. Can anybody explain how it works. How is the 17 day rule affected

Regards and thanks

John Boardman

Cardew

From my understanding, it would appear that the losing company are given the meter reading that you give to the gaining company.

The losing company's computer has an algorithm that checks those readings against the computer's calculation. If the two readings are outside the tolerance, it disputes the reading.

footyguy

I don't see how it can affect the switching date.

You are asked to provide your meter reading on, or at wosrts within 5 days of the switching date. This is given to the new supplier, who then passes it back to the old supplier as Cardew says.

So by then, you have aleady switched.

The only possible delays as I understand are in the production of the final bill by the old supplier (and possibly the production of the first bill by the new supplier)

So have you actually experienced a delay in the switching date allegedly caused by this?
Or is there another delay you are referring to?

lamanva

Thanks for replies. I got impression that a third party was involved, especially as have got final gas bill, but no sign of electric. Now understand that final supplier does validation. And as has been pointed out, my accounts have been transferred - a direct debit and an online account has been set up.

Thanks again for help

John Boardmanm

spiro

For electricity the new suppliers data collector (meter reader) validates the meter reading against your previous valid meter reading based on the annual consumption. Before they can do that they need to receive details of the meter (from the old mop to new mop to new dc) and meter read history from old dc. Once the new dc has validated the reading it is sent to the new supplier and the old dc who sends it on to the old supplier to produce your final bill.

Cardew

I suspect the validation of any meter reading is carried out totally by 'The Computer' with no human intervention.

I have an annex that most of the time uses very little gas or electricity, but the consumption is intermittent.

On changing supplier a couple of times my accurate meter readings have been rejected, and their estimated meter reading substituted. However their meter readings would only be a couple of kWh higher. This obviously was because it was comparing my readings with their estimation based on a previous period, and a discrepancy of couple of kWh might represent a high percentage.

e.g. my consumption for previous period might be, say, 30kWh. Actual consumption for this period(based on my readings) is, say, 15kWh. So this rejected by computer as there is a 50% discrepancy.

System

As explained by First Utility and Ovo:

https://www.first-utility.com/help/My_Meter/__kA1D00000008PnbKAE/I-submitted-my-meter-read-Why-have-I-got-an-estimated-bill