British Gas Smart Meter email

jaybeetoo

I've just rejoined BG through MSE Cheap Energy Club.

This morning I received an email from BG saying "Now you’re with us, we’ve checked the type of smart meters you have, and it looks like they won’t work with our systems. They will work as standard credit meters for now and you’ll need to give us regular meter readings.".

The smart meters were installed by British Gas!!!  If they won't work with their systems then what is the point of the smart meter rollout?!

MWT

When were the meters installed?

I'm guessing that they are not SMETS2 which may have triggered that email from BG.

I'd be inclined to let them know that they installed them ion the first place and if possible give them the make/model information which you can see on the meters themselves.

Older SMETS1 meters are not universally useable by all providers, that is planned to change later this year, but until then there is always the risk that the meters you have may not be useable by all suppliers.

mac.d

I know someone who had the exact same email, thought nothing else of it but when when trying to input a gas & electric reading online, they could only submit the electric. So phoned BG to query it and why the BG installed smart meters won't work, they checked and said oh yes I can see we installed them, hang on.... then they said they'd need to come out to update the electric meter to get it working again but that the gas meter is fine, they can get reads from it which is why the website won't allow manual input of the gas meter reading.

They are correct that the electric meter needs something done to get it working as a smart meter again because the lights are flashing orange on the comms unit and therefore not working. However, as the gas meter only sends the reading to the electric meter, their belief that the gas meter is fine and sending them readings is clearly flawed.....

Anyway, I'd suggest you give them a phone or go via the online chat to query it, as the meters should work, but perhaps it will need a visit from one of their engineers to do so?

jaybeetoo

I tried to register a smart meter fault with BG but they said I couldn’t raise a problem within 28 days of switching.

Today is just over 28 days so I called BG again.  They can’t send someone until the latter half of April

It will have taken BG 10 weeks to come and fix my smart meter since I first reported the problem.

[Deleted User]

An early SMETS1 smart meter should work with BG systems. I can only think that it is an admin mess up 

dinora

           

dinora

           

jaybeetoo

dinora said:

jaybeetoo said:

I tried to register a smart meter fault with BG but they said I couldn’t raise a problem within 28 days of switching.

You can raise a complaint with any supplier at any tiome following their complaint procedure - you don;t even need to be a customer.

But in your instance, I wouldn't bother as I have provided you the explanation above

You missed the original point - the smart meter is a British Gas smart meter!  How can it not be compatible with British Gas systems?!

Raxiel

I had this issue with Eon, they fitted smart meters, I left, then rejoined. Not only could they not reconnect to them, they couldn't even install new meters. From what I could gather when a particular MPAN was deactivated on their SMETS1 system it was blacklisted permanently, and since SMETS 2 was on the way, they weren't going to fix it.

I was told eventually the DCC would re-activate them but they didn't know when that would be. I've now left for Octopus who think they will be able to connect to them themselves, we'll see in a few days (Edit: They were able to connect, but I don't know if it was directly or via DCC).

dinora