Octopus Tracker

masonic

Doc_N said:

What am I missing here? My Tracker billing shows, for each day, actual consumption from the smart meter and the cost per kWh as a multiplier. Seems very simple.

You're not missing anything. Undisturbed, when everything is working as it should that is what is supposed to happen. However, in the event that a manual reading is provided, or there is any missing consumption data, the daily breakdown won't match the consumption from the smart meter. It will either be scaled such that the total matches the difference between index readings (all data available), or it will be disregarded and average figures used (missing data).

Doc_N

masonic said:

Doc_N said:

What am I missing here? My Tracker billing shows, for each day, actual consumption from the smart meter and the cost per kWh as a multiplier. Seems very simple.

You're not missing anything. Undisturbed, when everything is working as it should that is what is supposed to happen. However, in the event that a manual reading is provided, or there is any missing consumption data, the daily breakdown won't match the consumption from the smart meter.

Am I creating a problem, then, by providing the monthly readings they’re still, bizarrely, requesting every month? The meter appears to be giving them everything they need.

masonic

Doc_N said:

masonic said:

Doc_N said:

What am I missing here? My Tracker billing shows, for each day, actual consumption from the smart meter and the cost per kWh as a multiplier. Seems very simple.

You're not missing anything. Undisturbed, when everything is working as it should that is what is supposed to happen. However, in the event that a manual reading is provided, or there is any missing consumption data, the daily breakdown won't match the consumption from the smart meter.

Am I creating a problem, then, by providing the monthly readings they’re still, bizarrely, requesting every month? The meter appears to be giving them everything they need.

They shouldn't be requesting a reading if you have a smart meter. I think some people signed up for monthly email reminders. The system is designed to be left alone and use the smart readings. Customers cannot provide readings to the same level of precision (only whole numbers), and rarely give a reading corresponding to 00:00 as is assumed for billing. I haven't provided a reading so far this year and would only do so if I was experiencing billing problems. Octopus is also able to trigger an ad hoc smart read if they ever need to.

SJMALBA

I had smart meters installed a few weeks ago - annoyingly, the first bill has apportioned usage for both gas and electricity; according to Guy Lipman's 'Data Available from Octopus', there are no missing blocks for electricity, and 1 missing block for gas (the very first after the new meter was installed) - why has actual usage, at least for electricity, not been used?
(Though I'm unclear as to why they couldn't use actual usage for gas either, given that they have the final reading from the old meter, and just 1 missing block, on day 1, for the new meter?)

FWIW, actual usage, for both fuel types, is shown in my online account.

masonic

SJMALBA said:

I had smart meters installed a few weeks ago - annoyingly, the first bill has apportioned usage for both gas and electricity; according to Guy Lipman's 'Data Available from Octopus', there are no missing blocks for electricity, and 1 missing block for gas (the very first after the new meter was installed) - why has actual usage, at least for electricity, not been used?

Guy Lipman's checker only looks for missing blocks between the first and last reported data (it states "any periods between the first period and last period for which we don't have consumption data"). If you have missing blocks at the start or end it will not show them. As this was the first bill after installation, it is probable that usage data isn't available for the start of the billing period.

SJMALBA said:

(Though I'm unclear as to why they couldn't use actual usage for gas either, given that they have the final reading from the old meter, and just 1 missing block, on day 1, for the new meter?)

That's how the billing system works. Any missing block of data results in the automated bill being averaged. In the past, Octopus would recalculate with the odd missing block replaced with zero consumption and take the hit. It appears they are less generous about that these days.

SJMALBA

masonic said:

SJMALBA said:

I had smart meters installed a few weeks ago - annoyingly, the first bill has apportioned usage for both gas and electricity; according to Guy Lipman's 'Data Available from Octopus', there are no missing blocks for electricity, and 1 missing block for gas (the very first after the new meter was installed) - why has actual usage, at least for electricity, not been used?

Guy Lipman's checker only looks for missing blocks between the first and last reported data (it states "any periods between the first period and last period for which we don't have consumption data"). If you have missing blocks at the start or end it will not show them. As this was the first bill after installation, it is probable that usage data isn't available for the start of the billing period.

SJMALBA said:

(Though I'm unclear as to why they couldn't use actual usage for gas either, given that they have the final reading from the old meter, and just 1 missing block, on day 1, for the new meter?)

That's how the billing system works. Any missing block of data results in the automated bill being averaged. In the past, Octopus would recalculate with the odd missing block replaced with zero consumption and take the hit. It appears they are less generous about that these days.

First and last reported data more than cover the period of the bill i.e. from the meter install until 23:30 on 4.5.24, for a bill that covers the period from meter install upto & including 30th April.

Telegraph_Sam

Call me simple if you will but I'm not overly concerned about decimal points differences in the calculations if at the end of the month I get a bill that obviously corresponds to my usage derived from the difference between my monthly meter reads.
I've yet to come up with a quick and easy way to check the daily Tracker prices so take them as given as an act of faith.
I don't know if this approach would work if I changed to Agile?

masonic

SJMALBA said:

masonic said:

SJMALBA said:

I had smart meters installed a few weeks ago - annoyingly, the first bill has apportioned usage for both gas and electricity; according to Guy Lipman's 'Data Available from Octopus', there are no missing blocks for electricity, and 1 missing block for gas (the very first after the new meter was installed) - why has actual usage, at least for electricity, not been used?

Guy Lipman's checker only looks for missing blocks between the first and last reported data (it states "any periods between the first period and last period for which we don't have consumption data"). If you have missing blocks at the start or end it will not show them. As this was the first bill after installation, it is probable that usage data isn't available for the start of the billing period.

SJMALBA said:

(Though I'm unclear as to why they couldn't use actual usage for gas either, given that they have the final reading from the old meter, and just 1 missing block, on day 1, for the new meter?)

That's how the billing system works. Any missing block of data results in the automated bill being averaged. In the past, Octopus would recalculate with the odd missing block replaced with zero consumption and take the hit. It appears they are less generous about that these days.

First and last reported data more than cover the period of the bill i.e. from the meter install until 23:30 on 4.5.24, for a bill that covers the period from meter install upto & including 30th April.

That doesn't seem possible. If the meter was installed during the day (i.e not at midnight), for sake of argument on Mon 1st April, then the final reading from the old meter would have been submitted as the reading for 2024-03-31T23:00:00Z (equivalent to midnight BST on 1st April). The first smart reading, even if your meter connected and provisioned immediately upon being powered on, would be some time later on 1st April or beyond, so you would have no smart reading for 2024-03-31T23:30:00Z, 2024-04-01T00:00:00Z etc.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding things and if you confirm the install date and time of the meter, the date and time of the first HH read Octopus has, and the start of the billing period all will become clear.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Call me simple if you will but I'm not overly concerned about decimal points differences in the calculations if at the end of the month I get a bill that obviously corresponds to my usage derived from the difference between my monthly meter reads.
I've yet to come up with a quick and easy way to check the daily Tracker prices so take them as given as an act of faith.
I don't know if this approach would work if I changed to Agile?

You could still do this on Agile. You'd need to keep a record of the readings or look them up on the app. The difference between them can be checked against the number of kWh in your bill.

Tracker and Agile prices can be looked up on the various third party websites often linked in previous posts. Beyond a occasional spot-check to see you are being billed according to the correct tariff, I'm not sure why you'd want to.

SJMALBA

masonic said:

SJMALBA said:

masonic said:

SJMALBA said:

I had smart meters installed a few weeks ago - annoyingly, the first bill has apportioned usage for both gas and electricity; according to Guy Lipman's 'Data Available from Octopus', there are no missing blocks for electricity, and 1 missing block for gas (the very first after the new meter was installed) - why has actual usage, at least for electricity, not been used?

Guy Lipman's checker only looks for missing blocks between the first and last reported data (it states "any periods between the first period and last period for which we don't have consumption data"). If you have missing blocks at the start or end it will not show them. As this was the first bill after installation, it is probable that usage data isn't available for the start of the billing period.

SJMALBA said:

(Though I'm unclear as to why they couldn't use actual usage for gas either, given that they have the final reading from the old meter, and just 1 missing block, on day 1, for the new meter?)

That's how the billing system works. Any missing block of data results in the automated bill being averaged. In the past, Octopus would recalculate with the odd missing block replaced with zero consumption and take the hit. It appears they are less generous about that these days.

First and last reported data more than cover the period of the bill i.e. from the meter install until 23:30 on 4.5.24, for a bill that covers the period from meter install upto & including 30th April.

That doesn't seem possible. If the meter was installed during the day (i.e not at midnight), for sake of argument on Mon 1st April, then the final reading from the old meter would have been submitted as the reading for 2024-03-31T23:00:00Z (equivalent to midnight BST on 1st April). The first smart reading, even if your meter connected and provisioned immediately upon being powered on, would be some time later on 1st April or beyond, so you would have no smart reading for 2024-03-31T23:30:00Z, 2024-04-01T00:00:00Z etc.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding things and if you confirm the install date and time of the meter and the start of the billing period all will become clear.

No, you are correct, and yes, that slowly dawned on me after posting, and will likely be the explanation. Damn!