SSE Monitoring of Electricity Usage

Jmcv

Am I the only person who does not trust how my electricity is being recorded via a smart metre?
I am fortunate to have a small three bed bungalow, which was built just over three years ago.  We have the best insulation we could buy at the time, double glazing, an air source heat pump and PV panels on the roof.
We have a smart metre installed by SSE which is not recording any data in my home.  The screen says 'awaiting data'.
On my SSE account, there is recordings of my usage per half hour.  I have been monitoring this for the periods we use most electricity, very little is used during the day (I was looking particularly around meal times and when washing is done, showers etc).
Thermostats in any rooms not being used kept at 18 degrees, my living room is at 20 degrees, as is our bedroom.
I am stumped as to why the highest use for my electricity is during the night?
We are retired and only two of us live in the house.
Can anyone enlighten me?

MWT

Jmcv said:

I am stumped as to why the highest use for my electricity is during the night?

Typically that would be an immersion heater for the hot water, if you have one, or the ASHP working a little harder if it is colder at night.

... or just simply the fact that your PV does not produce anything after dark...

How much of a difference are you seeing in the night vs day usage?

matelodave

Have you tried reading the actual meter.

Even though the IHD isn't showing what is going on (mine was never right when I was with SSE) they still might be getting data. You should read you meter at least once a month and check that the bills are base on meter readings and not guesses or estimates

Try reading the meter and see how well it correlates with the info that SSE have on your account- the IHD is not a meter, smart or otherwise it's just a device to get data from the meter which doesn't always happen and may not be correct.

If you are concerned that something isn't right then read the meter more often, night and morning for a while (just before you go to bed and then again immediately you get up before turning stuff on to establish a baseline for when most stuff should be turned off). have you got E7 and have you got an immersion heater, what stuff is left on overnight. What sort of heating have you got.

Non of it is rocket science but you do need to do a bit of sleuthing to find out what is using your leccy rather than looking at your on-line account and wondering where its all going

Snwps

Its also worth remembering that the standing change is usually added from midnight so theres always a spike at midnight on my IHD where the standing charge has been added eventhough everything is off and we're all in bed. 

MWT

Snwps said:

Its also worth remembering that the standing change is usually added from midnight so theres always a spike at midnight on my IHD where the standing charge has been added eventhough everything is off and we're all in bed. 

From the original post...

Jmcv said:

On my SSE account, there is recordings of my usage per half hour.

They do not have a working IHD so it is the actual half-hour consumption data that they are using, so that will be unaffected by the daily standing charge.