Octopus go

Lenbatten · 7 June 2021 at 6:32PM

Hi I wondered if any one has similar problems. I am not technical so please forgive if the following ramble is published in the wrong place.

I have a tesla powerwall a small pv array(2.5kwh) and a small ev. I joined the octopus go tariff and found it very good charging car and battery at night and the full battery covered me for most of the day.

The smart meters fitted by octopus ( landis & gyr) did not work very well and also developed a problem with the powerwall (so I was told) this resulted in a non billing for a considerable period my monthly payment stayed the same for well over a year. Eventually the meters were changed to Kafta and things started to work again. I requested a refund as my octopus account was well in credit. Unable to do said octopus as the meters were not working correctly. These after many heated emails were finally sorted and a refund promised.

I then had a call from octopus to say that my octopus go tariff was ended as there was a unresolved conflict with the meter the powerwall and the goverment system so I would now be on standard tariff dispite trying to save peak power use by having the latest smart meter a powerwall an ev with smart charger they could not tell me how many people would be effected or if all battery’s were effected or if only certain meters were effected was it the goverments system? Or was it my many emails over a near 2 year period asking for a refund and when my system would be working?

Regards Len

MWT · 7 June 2021 at 6:52PM

You are not alone in having problems with the Kaifa meters that were used to replace the L&G due to Powerwall issues, but mostly the problems relate to the export data not being properly sent by the meter, but I do know some have reported import data problems as well.

It is certainly frustrating for all concerned as the meters are responding to data requests from the DCC with valid packets, but the data packet returned is empty...

This is not something Octopus can fix on their own and it seems to be taking the meter manufacturer and the DCC a considerable amount of time to work out where the problem is... (almost certainly the meter, not the DCC).

I haven't seen other reports about being kicked off of 'Go' though.

Curious about the battery reference since as far as I know that has not been implicated so far, although I'd guess that a lot of the Kaifa meters Octopus have installed will be on Powerwall systems as they were the selected replacement for the L&G that had a known issue.

Fortunately my replacement was an EDMI meter, not Kaifa...

In your case I'd be inclined to remind Octopus that the Kaifa meter was their choice and if it is not SMETS compliant then you would reasonably expect them to replace it with one that is compliant...

[Deleted User] · 7 June 2021 at 7:08PM

The problem with the Kaifa MA120 meter (and according to Octopus some other meters) has nothing whatsoever to do with your Powerwall 2. Octopus is receiving the daily meter index reading along with an empty XML file which is normally filled with the half hour usage data. Without the half hour usage data, Octopus cannot bill for Go. I know that some other customers have been removed from Octopus’ Agile tariff for the same reason.

Rest assured, you are not alone. I have a Kaifa MA120 meter and a Powerwall 2 and I had five weeks with no export data. A week ago import data also disappeared from My Account. That said, both my export and import data have now returned.

The latest information that I have from Octopus is that there are ongoing discussions/investigations with The DCC and Kaifa to determine the cause of the problem.