Energy websites crash as customers rush to submit their meter readings - DON'T panic, you have time

prowla

Incidentally, my supplier emailed a "Monthly read request" to me on Wednesday (30th), asking for it to be done before Sunday (3rd); of course, I did it on Thursday.

I found I was getting timeouts  trying to go to meter readings from the main page, but the link in the email went straight there.

k_man

prowla said:

k_man said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Don't panic says the website that helped cause the panic in the first place.

It has highlighted a couple of things though.

1) The suppliers' websites are woefully under specified for traffic volumes
2) Customers don't regularly submit end of month meter readings

Designing a system with enough capacity for the spike of traffic today would be overkill for the rest of the year.

Especially when the traffic increased again, as a result of the MSM coverage of this, as previously unaware users rush to submit before the perceived deadline.

The next price cap rise may include a line item for increasing system capacity to cope with the next rise date!

With hindsight the message from MSE should have been to make a note of the meter reading, just in case, rather than make sure you submit today (which is actually a day early anyway).
And the power companies should have sent out a message in anticipation.

In this day & age you don't size a system to cope with the anticipated peak - you spec it to autoscale up & down based on workload.

The design and architecture even of an autoscaling system is partly determined by the expected peak.
So autoscaling systems also need to be sized and so costed, based on peak capacity.

Most autoscaling systems use a hyperscalers that have different pricing tiers, based on, amongst other things, maximum scale up or out capacity.

spiderx

So...I only have electricity in my home (no gas) supplied by a company, EDF, that produces electricity from nuclear power ...so why the price hike blamed on wholesale gas prices ? Am I missing something here ?

Astria

spiderx said:

So...I only have electricity in my home (no gas) supplied by a company, EDF, that produces electricity from nuclear power ...so why the price hike blamed on wholesale gas prices ? Am I missing something here ?

Yes, just because you are with EDF, doesn't mean all your energy comes from EDF. It comes from the grid as a whole, and a lot of your energy is produced by gas, so when gas prices go up so do electric prices.

Gerry1

Astria said:

spiderx said:

So...I only have electricity in my home (no gas) supplied by a company, EDF, that produces electricity from nuclear power ...so why the price hike blamed on wholesale gas prices ? Am I missing something here ?

Yes, just because you are with EDF, doesn't mean all your energy comes from EDF. It comes from the grid as a whole, and a lot of your energy is produced by gas, so when gas prices go up so do electric prices.

Not quite correct.  OK, the energy from all companies goes into one big pot and then a bit of that is sent to you.  But it's hypothecated back to your supplier, e.g. if their electricity is generated entirely from hydro then, that's what you're buying.  The problem is that if world prices rise, that's the price they will be selling it at, unless capped by Ofgem.

It's a bit like withdrawing cash from the bank.  Some of the notes and coins you get may have been deposited by a money launderer, but that doesn't mean that you've now become a money launderer.

spiderx

Thanks for replies...I sort of knew that but was playing devils advocate. Just making the point that even though its world gas prices that have gone up, next week it will be because there are leaves on the line or the chairman of an energy company had their underwear on backwards. The lesson we all have to learn I suppose is to be as independent as possible and especially don't rely on international conglomerates to be 'nice' to their customers as they never will. My electric bill btw about to approach £3500 a year...I am a part time school caretaker and I have already done all the energy savings years ago ...i.e. solar panels , only low wattage led lights, insulation...low usage   but now somethings going to break !!!

QrizB

spiderx said:

My electric bill btw about to approach £3500 a year...I am a part time school caretaker and I have already done all the energy savings years ago ...i.e. solar panels , only low wattage led lights, insulation...low usage   but now somethings going to break !!!

£3500/yr is quite high, even for electricity-only. Storage heaters or panel heaters? Do you have any option of switching to gas, oil or LPG? Or even a heat pump?

spiderx

It is high...there are still more efficiencies to be made as the (old) house is still being worked on . Heating is mainly underfloor electric and we have 2 log burners. Heat pumps mean an up front capital cost we don't have ...our friends have them and are charged £600 a year service costs  so i don't want that ! Gas is an anachronism and even though we have log burners we are also trying to get away from carbon dependency so oil and LPG nein danke !

QrizB

spiderx said:

It is high...there are still more efficiencies to be made as the (old) house is still being worked on . Heating is mainly underfloor electric and we have 2 log burners.

Underfloor electric heating is one of the most expensive ways of heating a building. Storage heaters would almost certainly be cheaper.

Heat pumps mean an up front capital cost we don't have ...our friends have them and are charged £600 a year service costs  so i don't want that!

CAPEX now or OPEX forever, it's your choice. £600/yr for servicing is 3-5x the going rate and would still be cheaper than your underfloor heating.

Gas is an anachronism and even though we have log burners we are also trying to get away from carbon dependency so oil and LPG nein danke!

Fine, but you can't really choose one of the most expensive ways to heat your property and then complain it's expensive.

richardajh

Sea_Shell said:

I wonder how many people will be kicking themselves after submitting meter readings that were actually less than those that would be (or have already recently been) estimated by their supplier.

Yes they'll get a credit at today's prices, but at what cost at tomorrow's.

Yes agreed, pretty sure mine will estimate greater usage, so I'm going with that.