Smart meter fiddle by new energy supplier?

Shoddie

Hi @EssexHebridean.  You said "The BG/E7/Smart meter issue is a well known one".  It wasn't to me until I saw your and others' comments.  Do you have any links to reports about the issue in the public domain, especially the problems with swapping the functions of the two registers on the SMETS1 meters?

mmmmikey

Shoddie said:

Hi @mmmmikey.  Is it your opinion that the ombudsman was correct in that the meter register functions weren't exchanged?

To be honest I'm still not really sure I've fully understood the detail of your complaint and I think that is partly where the problem lies. It sounds a bit blunt to put it like this, but the impression I have (based only on this post) boils down to:

(1) muddling up E7 readings is a fairly common problem for the reasons outlined by @EssexHebridean and others

(2) this often causes confusion with the various parties cross purposes about whether the meter is correct and the bill is wrong or vice versa, when the important thing is just that they're consistent with each other

(3) both BG and UW are pretty crap ( to use the legal term ) at dealing with these issues and combined with the above there is lots of scope for confusion here

(4) in your case the difficulty is compounded because you think that UW and the Ombudsman are scurrilous rogues conspiring to rip you off so rather than patiently trying to explain what has gone wrong you've accused them of not listening, misrepresenting you and conspiring to rip you off

(5) at the same time, they probably think you're a nutty conspiracy theorist so aren't taking you as seriously as they should

(6) UW are saying that they have initial readings that have been agreed with British Gas in accordance with the industry process and are billing you correctly, having sorted out an initial issue with the billing, the inference being that any other problem you have is with British Gas, but that in their reckoning BG have undercharged you

(7) You're saying that although the readings BG provided are correct, the night and day have been swapped and somewhere along the way UW have masked this by making what was the night register increment during the day and vice versa

(8) You have provided evidence that supports your position, but (and I think this is key!) doesn't actually prove it because it hinges on your assertion that nothing else has changed and you're still using energy like you always have

So I don't really feel I can answer your question. On the one hand, what your saying makes sense, but on the other hand my own impression from the posts on this forum is the ombudsman makes the correct call most of the time. So when it comes to the rights and wrongs of this I'm on the fence - in essence I'm returning a verdict of "not proven" rather than innocent or guilty. Looping back to my previous post, I remain of the view that regardless of the rights and wrongs you'd probably lose in court if it came to it for the reasons given.

Hope this (sort of!) answers your question.

EssexHebridean

Shoddie said:

Hi @EssexHebridean.  You said "The BG/E7/Smart meter issue is a well known one".  It wasn't to me until I saw your and others' comments.  Do you have any links to reports about the issue in the public domain, especially the problems with swapping the functions of the two registers on the SMETS1 meters?

If you search the forums here you will find plenty of threads on the subject! As I recall the issue wasn’t specifically related to SMETS1 meters either. 

Shoddie

Hi @mmmmikey.  If you look at the table in my post on Saturday, it's pretty clear that the register functions were exchanged and that it happened when UW took over the meter.  British Gas weren't even able to communicate with the meter, but UW have still been consistent in blaming them for the error.  In my opinion it was crystal clear what had happened and I have supplied more than adequate evidence for it both to UW then, later on, to the ombudsman.  I know that you asserted a change of usage could explain what happened but using 2,670 kWh over the period of a few days whilst returning the same amount to the grid overnight is rather stretching credibility.  Especially as there is no generating capacity installed at that house!

I expected that, whatever else they decided, the ombudsman's adjudicators would agree that UW had exchanged the registers.  I confess that when they produced the first decision, I was gob-smacked.  I assumed it was a mistake and that if I appealed they would look more closely and agree.  I don't think they are "scurrilous rogues" but they do seem to have been bamboozled into believing it's impossible to swap the register functions in the way I described and to have based there decisions on that understanding.  I was surprised at the time but now I've heard that it was recognised as a common problem in the industry, I'm incredulous.

When I made my report to them I was pretty sure of my ground and I thought that UW's refusal to engage with the evidence was sufficient justification to suggest to that this may have happened to others.  I don't think that makes me a "nutty conspiracy theorist".

I honestly don't know about UW.  I find their behaviour suspicious but don't know enough about the commercial mechanisms surrounding moving from supplier to supplier to know if they have gained or would have gained from their "mistake".  It should be easy for an auditor familiar with the system to check the readings from both suppliers for import and billing.  If an issue is found they could widen their search to assess the extent of the problem.  Right now, I wouldn't be especially surprised to find the whole show being controller by a sinister foreigner petting a white Persian cat in a bunker miles below ground.

If you or any other forum members can explain why I'm wrong with relation to the facts provided, I'd be most grateful.  Assuming that I'm probably wrong because I'm only the customer and therefore I don't understand anything won't really cut it for me.

Phones4Chris

Shoddie said:

Hi @brianposter.  The original investigating officer stated:

"This is further confirmed on the evidence provided by Utility Warehouse that shows it was the start readings provided by British Gas of day 1791 and night 4461. The start readings were the cause for the large bill as they were the wrong way round.

I would further state when Utility Warehouse actioned the tariff change on your meter this would not cause the meter readings to turn the wrong way round, this is historical and could have happened at your transfer from Robin Hood."

I appealed this decision and the second investigating officer stated:

"I would also like to make it clear that it is not possible for a supplier to change the rates on your meter. As such, Utility Warehouse would not have physically been able to change your R1 register and R2 register around."

The relentless gaslighting along the lines of "this isn't possible" began to make me doubt my judgement so I contacted the meter manufacturer and asked them if it was possible and they confirmed that, yes, it was entirely possible.  I can't find a way of attaching a .pdf so I'll try and post the full text of the original and appeal decisions in a following post.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that there is an ever growing number of people, that now includes some ombudsman staff, in addition to some working for energy suppliers, that do NOT properly understand Smart Meters and the way they work, and the information they store.
I'm even more shocked that the information that you linked from the CAB website is wrong. As others have already said the First Register is normally the Day Rate and the second register is normally the Night Rate on an E7 tariff, whilst there is a very small number of suppliers who have them the other way round - and they can be changed!
On a single rate tariff the First register is the one that is used.
CAB need to be contacted and told to correct the information.
Edit: BTW, you do not have to accept the Ombudsman decision (Energy Suppliers do however) but I would challenge them again. Do a better presentation of your "evidence" as well as quote the information from the meter manufacturer and tell the Ombudsman rep that they are wrong!

Ildhund

Shoddie said:

I'm an engineer and have a reasonable understanding of metering systems. 

That being the case, it's a bit surprising that you haven't in several pages of posts here told us what make and model of meter is involved.

Your MPAN will tell you what the MTC (Meter Timeswitch Code) is (the middle box in the top line), which in turn can be translated into one or more SSCs (Standard Settlement Configurations), only one of which should be a standard Economy 7 arrangement with ~7 offpeak hours. The SSC covers a set of TPRs (Time Pattern Regimes), which specify in excruciating detail the start and stop times of the relevant register on each day of the year. You may be able to find these details in your online account, if you dig deep enough. This is what I could find for my supply point:

[
  {
    "mpxn": "110000NNNNNNN",
    "msn": "22MNNNNNNN",
    "address": [
    ...    
    ],
    "postCode": "XXNNNXX",
    "region": "_B",
    "profileClass": "02",
    "meterType": "S2AD",
    "mapId": "ACCU",
    "lineLossFactorClassId": "3",
    "registers": [
      {
        "tier": 1,
        "clockingTimeId": 40,
        "timeOfUseLabel": "peak",
        "meterRegisterId": "1",
        "timePatternRegime": 40,
        "measurementQuantityId": "AI",
        "switchedLoadIndicator": false,
        "meterRegisterMultiplier": 1,
        "registerMappingCoefficient": "1"
      },
      {
        "tier": 2,
        "clockingTimeId": 206,
        "timeOfUseLabel": "offpeak",
        "meterRegisterId": "2",
        "timePatternRegime": 206,
        "measurementQuantityId": "AI",
        "switchedLoadIndicator": true,
        "meterRegisterMultiplier": 1,
        "registerMappingCoefficient": "1"
      }
    ],
    "start": "2016-09-08T23:00:00.000Z",
    "end": null,
    "fuel": "Electricity",
    "meterNoOfDigitsOrDials": 5
  }
]

This information is all carefully curated by the appointed system manager, currently Elexon, and the databases correlating the various factors are all publicly available. The only variation that the supplier can make is to specify which TPR applies to which register, although that shouldn't be necessary nowadays since (I think) DCC insist on the lowest tier being the anytime/peak/normal register. This wasn't the case before DCC was invented, and some SMETS1 meters had the registers the other way round.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If you had tracked down this sort of supply point info when the problem first arose (and I'm still not quite sure when that happened), you'd have had black-and-white evidence of every change your various suppliers might have made to your meter's configuration - including which register tier corresponded to which register ID and what time of use it applied to. I would have thought that this was bread and butter for an engineer interested in metering systems.
  

---

OT for @Phones4Chris: Note that even though the MPAN gives my DNO area ID, the GSP region (_B) is also specified as a separate item.

brianposter

It seems to me quite obvious that the meter registers have been switched but that the OP has made no attempt to demonstrate which set of readings are correct  Could  someone suggest the quickest and most convincing way to demonstrate whether the current readings are right or wrong.

EssexHebridean

brianposter said:

It seems to me quite obvious that the meter registers have been switched but that the OP has made no attempt to demonstrate which set of readings are correct  Could  someone suggest the quickest and most convincing way to demonstrate whether the current readings are right or wrong.

Establishing which register is active during the daytime period, and providing photographic evidence of this to the supplier is the usual way of getting a register switch on E7 corrected. Some suppliers require more evidence than others - I've had one that wanted time-stamped photographs at times when each register was active, over several days, and another that was prepared to simply look back at the history and use and agree that it was unlikely we had gone from using approx 75% of our energy overnight to using that amount during the day.

mmmmikey

brianposter said:

It seems to me quite obvious that the meter registers have been switched but that the OP has made no attempt to demonstrate which set of readings are correct  Could  someone suggest the quickest and most convincing way to demonstrate whether the current readings are right or wrong.

Hi @brianposter

At the risk of sounding obtuse or pedantic, in relation to your comment about it being obvious that "the meter registers have been switched", I'd challenge that on the basis that it depends what exactly you mean by "the meter registers have been switched". The impression I've formed is that this means different things to different parties and not only is it causing confusion it cuts right to the heart of the dispute.

By way of explanation, taking it from the start and apologies if this is a bit laboured....

1. The meter has various registers that keep running totals. Two of the registers (R01 and R02) are used to keep track of usage during the day and night so that E7 customers can be billed at a lower rate during the night and a higher rate during the day. There are inconsistencies on how meters are set up. Sometimes R01 is used to store daytime usage and R02 used to store night usage, and sometimes it's the other way round, i.e. R01 night and R02 day.

2. In order to generate bills correctly, suppliers' billing computers keep a record of which register is used during the day and which is used during the night.

3. Once everything is set up and running it doesn't really matter which way this is done; as long as the billing computer knows what register that the meter is using for what it can generate a correct bill.

4. Sometimes, when an E7 customer switches supplier they get incorrect bills because the new supplier's computer system has been set up the wrong way round. For example, the new supplier's computer might think that the R01 register is being used for night time usage but the meter could actually be using the R01 register for daytime usage. This is a problem that crops up from time to time and we see occasional reports of on this forum. The problem is invariably corrected by updating the billing computer's record, so in this example the billing computer would be updated to use R01 for daytime usage and vice versa for R02. An amended bill would then be produced. All this is done at the supplier's computer and the meter doesn't need to be accessed or in anyway changed or altered.

5. Some people would say that "the meter registers have been switched" in this scenario, with that just being an abbreviated way of saying "the suppliers record of which register is being used during the day and which register is being used during the night has been updated". All perfectly reasonable in my view.

6. But depending on the context, other people might say "no, no, no - the meter hasn't been changed, nothing on the meter has been switched". Again true and perfectly reasonable in my view.

This might sound like a ridiculously laboured explanation, but I think it is important here because in my view it's a good example of a confusion that is making this issue so difficult to resolve. Put simply, the various parties appear to be cross-purposes on various points.

Hi @Shoddie

In this particular case, the impression I have formed is that there are two different explanations of what has gone wrong with the billing, neither of which have been proved or disproved.

UW are saying that this is more or less like the example of the issue I described in point 4 above. Their computer has the R01 and R02 registers the opposite way round to BG's computer and this has generated the bill that you dispute. The thing that makes this situation different is that their position is that it's not their computer that is wrong, it is BG's computer. For everything to come right, BG need to correct the error on their computer, but this won't help you. By way of evidence to support their position, they have pointed to a test that you did that showed that the correct register (according to their computer) is incrementing during the day.

You are saying (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) that this isn't the case. The alternative explanation that you put forward is that UW have changed the meter itself so that the register that was previously being incremented during the night is now being incremented during the day and vice versa. It's this change to the meter itself that is causing the mismatch between the meter and the computer and leading to the billing issue. By way of evidence to suport this, you are saying that UW's version of events would mean that more electricity is being used during the day than the night and because there's a thermal store installed that shouldn't be happening.

In your last response to me you pointed me to your table in an earlier post. Although it clearly shows something changed when UW took on the account, it looks to me to be consistent with both UW's and your explanations of what you both think has happened. I'm not seing any smoking gun there that makes UW's argument invalid. 

I take your point about change of usage so please discount what I said about that earlier.

To be clear, I don't have a dog in this fight and not meaning to argue with you. Neither am I saying that I think you're wrong and UW and the Ombudsman are correct. What I'm trying to say (and I don't honestly know if I've succeded) is that based on my reading of this post and the Ombudsman responses I don't think it's possible to say with any certainty who is right and who is wrong. If you disagree with this, feel free to respond accordingly. We don't need to come to blows and I don't think we have. I'm actually trying to help you by (hopefully) explaining what I understand to be UW's position, why they are consistently blaming BG for the issue and why I believe there position is credible and it's not as clear cut as you think. I believe that your explanation is also credible. The issue is that it isn't proven and the onus is on you to prove it if you wish to dispute the bill.

I have no problem at all if you highlight a flaw in my logic or point to something I've missed - if you can do that it would be a good step towards helping you re-approach UW etc. from a different direction and hopefully get this resolved to your satisfaction.

Shoddie

Hi @Ildhund.  No-one asked for meter details and I've been assuming the problem to be common to all SMETS1 meters, indeed, at least one post has included SMETS2 meters as well.  Let me introduce you.

It is a Secure Liberty 100 SMETS1 meter:

I got this off the bill and I believe it contains the MPAN:

After I got the appeal decision from the ombudsman, I admit that I was losing confidence in my ability to understand.  I wrote to the meter manufacturer and they confirmed what I had observed in that the register functions could indeed be exchanged.  They also advised me that Meter Asset Provider wouldn't keep a record of settings changes to the meter and I would have contact my supplier for details.  Given that UW were firmly denying doing anything, I didn't think that would be productive.

When I said "I'm an engineer and have a reasonable understanding of metering systems", I was referring to the disciplines surrounding the monitoring of power and energy flows through a link in an AC power network.  The byzantine arrangements for data processing and billing on the grid seem to be evolving continuously and each time I've looked into things I found some organisations that might have the meter setting information but never one prepared to share it with me directly.  These organisations are Governed by Parkinson's Law rather than any scientific laws that I'm familiar with.  I would never claim to be an expert in this area.  I doubt if there's a human alive who could comprehend all of it.

Your comment "The SSC covers a set of TPRs (Time Pattern Regimes), which specify in excruciating detail the start and stop times of the relevant register on each day of the year" caught my attention.  It does seem to suggest the the array of organisations and systems that comprise the grid managament are already too bloated and complex to deal with zero carbon generation which will be largely happenstantial rather than predictable.

It would be nice to get confirmation of what I already know about the meter settings but, the tone of your last paragraph implies the opportunity has gone.  Is that right?

I'm going to explore the Elexon portal anyway.