Switching Electricity Supplier with a Smart Meter (SMETS2)

JohnPo

I was with British Gas, had been with them since last year when got moved to them via the SOLR process.   Earlier this year I decided that with me having an EV I’d be better off on Octopus GO’s smart tariff, I made some inquiries with Octopus, bit complicated but because you have to switch via one of their standard tariffs and only once live and with a smart meter connected to them will they accept you onto Octopus GO. Based theses discussions I got BG to fit a smart meter all done very efficiently in January and waited until I could see they were getting regular half hourly reads before initiating a switch.

 

So on switch day (1st April 22) I took a manual read from my smart reader, in my case the reading was 01484 which I gave to Octopus, I have been regularly checking my old BG account and to my surprise a couple of days ago a final bill appeared with  the final meter reading used of 01718. I queried this Octopus and they informed me that BG had used an estimated reading of 2054 which they were in the process of querying.

 

What I am struggling to understand is that with both suppliers having online access to the smart meter either side of switch why the industry cannot sort themselves out to get  accurate final bills?  And even when the customer provides accurate information on switch day they don’t use it, surely Octopus can retrospectively check the figure from the records in my meter?

[Deleted User]

Both suppliers do not have access to your smart meter. Smart meter security is based on one meter: one supplier. The new supplier only gets access to your meter once the National Database has been updated and it has sent out its customer-bespoke security certificates to your meter. This process can take a few weeks.

As the gaining supplier is responsible for the transfer of supply, it asks you for a manual reading which its data collector validates before passing the reading back to both suppliers to open and close your accounts. Both suppliers are required to use this reading or, in certain circumstances, they raise an Agreed Readings Dispute.

I accept that the process is not fit for the smart meter age but, in truth, we are some years away from having 100% smart meter deployment. The present system - 'warts n all' works for smart and non smart meter supplier transfers.