Smart Meter lost connection to server and cost me £1,294

Jonesyjak

MWT said:

Jonesyjak said:

MWT said:

Jonesyjak said:

 The IHD shows we're using around £25 per week on gas and electricity. Based on 4,248kWh over 5 months, that's 849 kWh per month and a whopping 10,195kWh per year!

If you tap the monetary amount on the screen you should be able to change it to kWh, that is a better way to track the use as the tariff rates used by the IHD are not always the same as the ones being used to bill you by your supplier.

If you want to tell us what the kWh for the week to date is now that would be useful.

Also you should be able to change the display to show the usage right now in kW, that would also help.

The 'Usage now' figure is momentary and will change a lot, but it is a good display to leave it on so you can see what is being used at the moment and hopefully spot any unexplained peaks which will help you track down problems...

It says that we used 347 kWh last month, have used 149kWh so far this month and 78.86kWh last week

That is great, looks like you are using around 10-11kWh a day, which casts a large degree of suspicion on that very high usage that they have billed you for.

Jonesyjak said:

Here is the metre. The IHD stopped showing electricity usage in March 2021. I contacted UW and they sent an engineer to reestablish the connection. When I called in December, I was told that they had incorrectly put it down as a metre exchange and reset the metre to 1 and that was the issue. They have since told me that the metre was reset to 1 but sometimes they do that 

This is probably where the incorrect usage charge has originated, so now we need to get to the meter readings on the bills...

Can you also note the meter serial number which should be shown on the bills and see if that changes...

Sorry, just saw the serial number query - looking at a bill pre March 2021 (when the engineer came out) and November's bill, the supply number is the same on both 

We're on a value tariff too (should have said sorry) 

MWT

Jonesyjak said:

Sorry, just saw the serial number query - looking at a bill pre March 2021 (when the engineer came out) and November's bill, the supply number is the same on both 

There should also be a meter number on there, the supply number is effectively the location of the meter and that would not change.

Jonesyjak

MWT said:

Jonesyjak said:

Apr 21 estimated - start: 3385 end 3666 charged: 181
Customer's: start: 3666 end: 3898 charged: 230

Nov 21 estimated - start: 2846 end: 6086 charged: 3240

So what you should be hoping to find is that the meter number on your bills up to April is the same as the meter number on your most recent bills, you should be able to see that fairly easily...

I have the supply number which is the same on all the bills I have (Dec 2020 to date). Electricity usage in December 2021 (just found bill) was:
Smart meter: start 6086 end 6434 charged 348

Jonesyjak

MWT said:

There should also be a meter number on there, the supply number is effectively the location of the meter and that would not change.

Sorry, meter serial number is the same on all bills

MWT

Jonesyjak said:

MWT said:

There should also be a meter number on there, the supply number is effectively the location of the meter and that would not change.

Sorry, meter serial number is the same on all bills

Perfect, then you have your answer.

They need to recalculate the recent bills on the basis that this is the same meter and there has been no reset to zero and the excess billing should go away.

The low estimates they used after they initially lost contact mean there is more to pay than was billed over the summer months but not as much as they have billed you.

You can work it out for yourself if you can get the amounts you were billed for electricity each month, or post the details here when you get them and we will help.

Gerry1

Time for the Meter Sanity Test, especially if the meter is external to your property.

Do you have an electric shower? Should never be used if you have gas.

Jonesyjak

MWT said:

Perfect, then you have your answer.

They need to recalculate the recent bills on the basis that this is the same meter and there has been no reset to zero and the excess billing should go away.

The low estimates they used after they initially lost contact mean there is more to pay than was billed over the summer months but not as much as they have billed you.

You can work it out for yourself if you can get the amounts you were billed for electricity each month, or post the details here when you get them and we will help.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate the time you've taken advising on this

I'll give them a call tomorrow and get electricity usage up to July where I'm missing months (March, May and June) and from July to November (where it dropped off and estimates were used)

Thank you again, you've been a huge help

bagand96

Jonesyjak said:

MWT said:

Perfect, then you have your answer.

They need to recalculate the recent bills on the basis that this is the same meter and there has been no reset to zero and the excess billing should go away.

The low estimates they used after they initially lost contact mean there is more to pay than was billed over the summer months but not as much as they have billed you.

You can work it out for yourself if you can get the amounts you were billed for electricity each month, or post the details here when you get them and we will help.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate the time you've taken advising on this

I'll give them a call tomorrow and get electricity usage up to July where I'm missing months (March, May and June) and from July to November (where it dropped off and estimates were used)

Thank you again, you've been a huge help

I think it's already been suggested but just to say again, start taking daily meter readings from today and logging them.  Or even better take a photo of the meter daily, if your phone lets you add a date/time stamp do that too.  Just until this issue gets resolved, but it will start documenting your daily use just in case you need to escalate this as a complaint to UW and even The Energy Ombudsman.

Sounds as if the front-line CS agents you've spoken don't understand the issue or maybe don't have the knowledge to help.  If you don't get much joy then raise a formal complaint with UW. Making a complaint (uw.co.uk)  If they don't resolve it within 8 weeks you can then escalate to The Energy Ombudsman.  It hopefully won't get there on the face of it this seems a simple error that they can correct, but at the same time you'd like to think they'd already have spotted that.

Jonesyjak

MWT:

That would seem like most of your problem right there...

Take your end of April reading and subtract from the current reading and you'll get an average of around 10.5kWh a day which is consistent with your current usage and only a little lower than your usage in April last year.

They have used an estimate start reading in Nov '21 which is lower than your end Feb '21 reading.

So what you should be hoping to find is that the meter number on your bills up to April is the same as the meter number on your most recent bills, you should be able to see that fairly easily...

An update (of sorts):

They did a power cycle on 19.03.21 and reset the meter to 1

The last reading from the smart meter was on 09.05 before the signal dropped again. 

Usage details:

April bill (for March): 3666 to 3898 (230 used) z reset happened during this month
May est: 3896 to 4239 (343 used)
July est: 1211 to 1519 (308 used)
Aug est: 1519 to 1838 (319 used)
Oct est: 2161 to 2481 (320 used) 

They didn't send other months despite asking. I thought we'd cracked it at one point - if they were billing as if the meter had been reset to 1 when it hadn't, that would have taken us from 3,734kWh in March to 6,086kWh in Nov, an average of 9kWh per day. Which makes sense when you look at the average daily use over winter as 10.5kWh per day. However, the time they have billed over is coming out at 23kWh per day. The call ended with them saying they'd check if the meter was set to 1 during the power cycle and would call me back.

If the other months come through, I'll post readings 

Jonesyjak

March 21 smart meter: 2971 to 3277 (306 charged)

September est: 1838 to 2161 (323 charged) 

I'll post a picture of June as there's a lot in there. Talks about a meter exchange but no meter exchange took place