British Gas Smart Meter consumption after switch

DanS

I was a British Gas dual fuel customer until recently and have now switched my gas supply to N-Power whilst still keeping my electricity with British Gas. For a couple of weeks after the switch, my smart meter continued to show consumption information for both gas and electricity but in the last day or so has reverted to demo mode showing no consumption.

Now I understand after the switch the supplier could no longer get the meter readings electronically but why would the whole local tracking of the consumption not be possible since the smart meter was functioning for a short time after the switch. It seems that it has been disabled remotely by British Gas.

Has anyone found a way to reactivate the smart meter to track consumption locally after switching supply? Not concerned about it not transmitting the readings to the supplier but would be good to at least be able to track kw/h again.

System

DanS wrote: »

I was a British Gas dual fuel customer until recently and have now switched my gas supply to N-Power whilst still keeping my electricity with British Gas. For a couple of weeks after the switch, my smart meter continued to show consumption information for both gas and electricity but in the last day or so has reverted to demo mode showing no consumption.

Now I understand after the switch the supplier could no longer get the meter readings electronically but why would the whole local tracking of the consumption not be possible since the smart meter was functioning for a short time after the switch. It seems that it has been disabled remotely by British Gas.

Has anyone found a way to reactivate the smart meter to track consumption locally after switching supply? Not concerned about it not transmitting the readings to the supplier but would be good to at least be able to track kw/h again.

Why not ask BG?

nPower

DanS wrote: »

I was a British Gas dual fuel customer until recently and have now switched my gas supply to N-Power whilst still keeping my electricity with British Gas. For a couple of weeks after the switch, my smart meter continued to show consumption information for both gas and electricity but in the last day or so has reverted to demo mode showing no consumption.

Now I understand after the switch the supplier could no longer get the meter readings electronically but why would the whole local tracking of the consumption not be possible since the smart meter was functioning for a short time after the switch. It seems that it has been disabled remotely by British Gas.

Has anyone found a way to reactivate the smart meter to track consumption locally after switching supply? Not concerned about it not transmitting the readings to the supplier but would be good to at least be able to track kw/h again.

Hi DanS

As your smart meter was installed before you came to npower, I'm afraid the smart functionality will no longer work, this includes the handheld device that monitors your consumption; that is until a new smart meter is installed by npower.

If there's anything we can help you with please email us at the address on our profile.

Thanks

Jade

MeterMan

The in-home display is dependent on the hub being in communication with the supplier. When you switch supplier, the simcard in the hub is deactivated (determined by an orange wan light). At this point your In-home display will cease to work.

woter324

Hi Meterman,

Thanks for the info, but can you (or anyone else) provide any more reasoning why this is the case?

The SIM card is in the base unit which sends the data to the supplier, which is disable when one leaves said supplier. The base unit communicates with the portable reader using Zigbee's 2.4GHz range.

I can see no practical or technical reason why the hand-held device should stop completely. It should still be capable of showing basic information, such as the meter readings and energy consumption in KWh.

My reasoning is that British Gas are just being awkward. "You left us, so we're going to disable the hand held device to punish you."

Thanks

molerat

The reason is probably because the (current) specification does not require them to and will be set by a marker in the programming again set by the specification.

Raxiel

woter324 wrote: »

Hi Meterman,

Thanks for the info, but can you (or anyone else) provide any more reasoning why this is the case?

The SIM card is in the base unit which sends the data to the supplier, which is disable when one leaves said supplier. The base unit communicates with the portable reader using Zigbee's 2.4GHz range.

I can see no practical or technical reason why the hand-held device should stop completely. It should still be capable of showing basic information, such as the meter readings and energy consumption in KWh.

My reasoning is that British Gas are just being awkward. "You left us, so we're going to disable the hand held device to punish you."

Thanks

Certainly not every IHD loses consumption info after a switch. They could have programmed it to keep working after a switch but they chose not to. Does seem petty, but it costs them nothing and if it deters only a handful of switchers then its probably worth it for them.

dogshome

I'm no expert on Smart meters, but my understanding is that it's the Elec meter that does the communicating with it's supplier/installer, whilst the Gas meter uses it's battery power to communicate with the Elec meter which bounces the readings on.

Swapping the elec supplier will certainly make the meter 'dumb', but this OP has retained BG for Elec supplies, so at least this function should still work

DanS

@dogshome, I think you're right. I really don't see the technical reason behind this as even after my switch the smart meter was functioning as usual for a couple of weeks (even though the rates were not quite right). It seems like an arbitrary move by energy suppliers when the technology itself is quite capable of continuing to operate albeit in only a semi-smart mode!