Smart meter still on old prices (before 1st April)

sebtomato

After 3 months of escalations, EDF finally finished the commissioning of my smart meter and In-Home Display yesterday.

However, the IHD still shows prices (rates and standing charges) applicable before the recent increase, which is a bit surprising.

Is that usual? Why would it take an electricity company more than 1 day to send the new tariffs to the meters??

As the device is provided by them and can't be changed by the user, do they have any liability when it comes to showing wrong prices for a long time (or sending a bill that is going to be completely different)?

GingerTim

It took nearly three months for my IHD to update when I switched to EDF last August.

JGB1955

Our SMETS1 meter has only just been updated (after 5 years).  Shame the cost of electricity isn't still the 10p per kWh it was displaying until that point!

MWT

sebtomato said:

Is that usual? Why would it take an electricity company more than 1 day to send the new tariffs to the meters??

As the device is provided by them and can't be changed by the user, do they have any liability when it comes to showing wrong prices for a long time (or sending a bill that is going to be completely different)?

They have to send the update messages via the DCC and it can take more than a day to do that, especially when there are a lot of meters to update, but ultimately they have no obligation to update the tariff information and no penalty for failing to do so.

If it informational only and has no impact on billing.

You will be billed correctly regardless.

Phones4Chris

MWT said:

sebtomato said:

Is that usual? Why would it take an electricity company more than 1 day to send the new tariffs to the meters??

As the device is provided by them and can't be changed by the user, do they have any liability when it comes to showing wrong prices for a long time (or sending a bill that is going to be completely different)?

They have to send the update messages via the DCC and it can take more than a day to do that, especially when there are a lot of meters to update, but ultimately they have no obligation to update the tariff information and no penalty for failing to do so.

If it informational only and has no impact on billing.

You will be billed correctly regardless.

The IHD "should" say the same as the meter itself surely. Anyway, I can confirm it's a lot longer than a day, 2 1/2 months and still waiting, but the billing is being charged correctly (sadly!).

Dogbyte009

It's not unusual. I went onto a new fixed tariff in October and the IHD only updated this week.

sebtomato

MWT said:

They have to send the update messages via the DCC and it can take more than a day to do that, especially when there are a lot of meters to update, but ultimately they have no obligation to update the tariff information and no penalty for failing to do so.

If it informational only and has no impact on billing.

You will be billed correctly regardless.

I think an electricity company not updating the prices displayed for a long time is misleading intentionally customers.

Also, what's the point of smart meters if cost information is massively underestimated. How people are supposed to control their spend if information displayed is not correct?

MWT

sebtomato said:

Also, what's the point of smart meters if cost information is massively underestimated. How people are supposed to control their spend if information displayed is not correct?

I would still suggest that people are much better advised to watch their consumption in kWh rather than in £, failure to understand the actual consumption leads to far too many misunderstandings around here as when tariffs do change the £ change.

I'd rather see people take enough interest in their own consumption to know their kWh cost and use the IHD to monitor use, not cost, but I do understand why people feel the need to just look at the cost, even though it is not really the best idea.

Phones4Chris

MWT said:

sebtomato said:

Also, what's the point of smart meters if cost information is massively underestimated. How people are supposed to control their spend if information displayed is not correct?

I would still suggest that people are much better advised to watch their consumption in kWh rather than in £, failure to understand the actual consumption leads to far too many misunderstandings around here as when tariffs do change the £ change.

I'd rather see people take enough interest in their own consumption to know their kWh cost and use the IHD to monitor use, not cost, but I do understand why people feel the need to just look at the cost, even though it is not really the best idea.

Yes, I agree, not enough people pay attention to that.

sebtomato

MWT said:

sebtomato said:

Also, what's the point of smart meters if cost information is massively underestimated. How people are supposed to control their spend if information displayed is not correct?

I'd rather see people take enough interest in their own consumption to know their kWh cost and use the IHD to monitor use, not cost, but I do understand why people feel the need to just look at the cost, even though it is not really the best idea.

At the end of the day, what matters to people is cost.

If they are given a device to monitor/control their spending (that's the primary intent of smart meters), then those devices might as well show the proper cost (or close enough). Otherwise, the primary intent is not met.

Many people are not going to do calculations converting KWh to cost on a spreadsheet, particularly when the rates are also changing during the day (e.g. economy 7).

I see zero technical reasons for an electricity company not to update its smart meters with the correct tariffs in a timely manner. Currently, using a pre-1st April tariff may underestimate cost massively.

MWT

sebtomato said:

I see zero technical reasons for an electricity company not to update its smart meters with the correct tariffs in a timely manner. Currently, using a pre-1st April tariff may underestimate cost massively.

The method for updating them is not under their direct control, they have to format and send the messages for each meter via the DCC, and then track if the message was successfully received or not and potentially resend the messages, all of which incurs a cost for each message.,

This is not just something they change on their systems and job done.

Yes it would be good if the smart meters could be kept up to date with the tariff changes, but the point about monitoring the kWh is that you make a real change by reducing consumption, if you just look at the cost then it changes every time the tariff changes.

I've learned far more about our consumption by looking at the kWh then I ever would have done by just looking at the cost...