Smart meter fiddle by new energy supplier?

Shoddie

Hi @Phones4Chris.  Is it possible that the CAB advice dates back to a time when Individual suppliers fitted and set up their own smart meters?  Or ... am I remembering a golden age which never actually existed?

I can understand the ombudsman staff not understanding the detail of how SMETS1 meters are set up but I would have expected them to have an independent expert to consult.  It baffles me why they would accept that the meter functions couldn't be exchanged when so much evidence showed that it must have happened somehow.  I did speak to them afterwards and got the impression that their view was that if British Gas and  / or previous suppliers could be blamed, how it had happened wasn't relevant as they were dealing exclusively with the dispute between myself and UW.  Path of minimum resistance?

brianposter

In view of previous posts it may be sensible to talk in terms of "consumption figures" rather than registers. In principle it is not up to the consumer to determine what has gone wrong. - what the consumer has to demonstrate is which bills are accurate and which are not.

To do this eight timed photographs would appear to be more than sufficient.

Shoddie

Hi @mmmmikey.  I don't think we are going to come to blows!  Your latest comments are helpful and informative.  I'm just going to try and fill in the gaps.

Firstly, my assumption has been that although the meter operators can set up the registers to measure what they want them to, they can't exchange or modify the accumulated totals.

Until UW sent me the bill that triggered the dispute, I hadn't needed to do much with the meter.  The system at that time comprised 6 kW of immersion heaters which were switched by a timer which only allowed them to operate during the off peak period.  My monitoring focussed on the electricity usage in the property and checking that the bulk of the usage was during the off peak period.  As the billing and usage met with my expectations, I had no reason to investigate  the meter.  When Ebico / Robin Hood folded, British Gas took over.  They told me they couldn't communicate with the meter so they talked me through the process of taking manual readings.  Some readings I supplied, and some bills were based on slightly optimistic estimates.  Up to this point I hadn't had to look at the meter setup or understand its principles of operation.  I had no evidence as to how the meter was set up.

The reality is that up until UW took over the meter the off peak usage was consistently over double the daytime usage.  When I looked at the meter settings to try and understand the UW's incorrect bill, it was clear that R01 had been set up to record day usage and R02 the off peak.  I could see that from the operating times and tariffs on the register settings which matched UW's offer emailed to me at the beginning.  The load tests merely confirmed this.  The meter was now adding the larger night usage to the smaller total.  This can't have been due to previous suppliers reading the wrong registers as amounts and totals had been consistent on all the bills up to the changeover.  The change had to have been made around the time of transfer from British Gas.  Whether it was the the register functions or the accumulated totals that were swapped I can't say for certain but my understanding is that the totals can't be swapped.  British Gas claim they never communicated with the meter and I can't see any motivation for them tampering with the meter near the end of the contract then lying about it.  As UW clearly uploaded their settings into meter registers at takeover the only logical conclusion is that this was how and when the exchange was made.

Chrysalis

Interesting thread, my question is why are multiple registers being used for dual rate billing, when they can just use one register, and allocate the 30 min increments to the correct time of day?  Would solve this issue with swapping registers right? I assume this is how tariffs like Agile work.
To the OP, I think you need to find a way to prove the registers are backwards, the timestamped photo/videos suggestion seems a good way to do this?
There was a comment inside the ombudsman findings which indicated you sent them evidence of the day register moving during the day?  What happened there?  As that was the basis of deciding Uw didnt make a mistake.

MattMattMattUK

Chrysalis said:

Interesting thread, my question is why are multiple registers being used for dual rate billing, when they can just use one register, and allocate the 30 min increments to the correct time of day? 

Would solve this issue with swapping registers right? I assume this is how tariffs like Agile work.

Legacy mostly, possibly some archaic billing systems, it also continues to work when data transmission fails, where as without using separate registers if the data transmission fails then there is no way to read the 30 minute data. The 30 minute data is available alongside the separate registers so there is no reason it could not be used to validate the registers and automatically deal with crossed registers though. It is how Agile works, there can be issues with Agile/ToU tariffs if the data fails, but generally it works well.

superkoopauk

Chrysalis said:

There was a comment inside the ombudsman findings which indicated you sent them evidence of the day register moving during the day?  What happened there?  As that was the basis of deciding Uw didnt make a mistake.

Same question from me - from the original ombudsman verdict

"You have provided a load test within the evidence that shows the readings advancing on the day rate of 4527 at 14:04 and the again 4529 14:20"

So that proved the higher reading was the day register which is how UW have billed you?

Petriix

I wouldn't worry too much about the Ombudsman's decision. I suspect that the issue has been totally confounded by the confusing language around meter registers and day/night rates so you're struggling to get the issue explained in a concise and objective way. 

It's highly likely that UW ran an update on the meter at the point of your switch to bring it in line with how they operate. This will be hard to prove one way or another but should be irrelevant, as long as you have evidence of what both registers showed at the time of the switch. 

Did you take photos of the meter readings of both registers when you switched? If so it becomes trivial to demonstrate the inaccuracy of the bill. Obviously impossible to do retrospectively but the key learning for all is to take photos of all your meter readings in case of future dispute. 

Don't get hung up on what happened to the meter, just focus on the billed usage vs the actual change in readings. Don't get angry or accusatory as it's a complicated situation likely caused by badly thought out processes rather than individual error. 

Ultimately it may need to go to court for resolution. Don't be afraid of that, just gather the appropriate evidence focusing on the erroneous bill rather than any other facet of the overall saga. 

Simply put, your case boils down to:

On date d my supply switched to UW. At this point photographs A and B show readings of R01 x and R02 y. Today these readings are R01 xx and R02 yy as shown on photographs C and D. Photographs E and F show that R0? increments during the day so this usage should have been billed at the day rate.

xx - x shows total day usage of X and yy - y shows total night usage of Y for this period. At £x and £y per kWh respectively (plus £z standing charge and vat) my total bill should have been £? but UW have attempted to bill me £?, a difference of £?

To reiterate: it doesn't matter that the registers in use hav changed. It only matters that you're not being billed on the actual change in readings on those registers. 

Phones4Chris

@Shoddie I assume this is still ongoing?!
Even I'm confused about what's happened, but simple question "Are UW saying that Rate 1 is Daytime?"
If they aren't saying that and saying it's night time this may be of interest which I stumbled across when looking for something else -
https://help.uw.co.uk/article/Energy/how-to-read-an-electricity-smart-meter-made-by-aclara

The make/model is not relevant here, it's the 3rd bullet point which is of interest.

Qyburn

As one considering swapping to E7, are these issues only with SMETS1 meters? Ours is SMETS2 installed January 2023.

EssexHebridean

If you are on E7 then a rate transposition can happen regardless of meter type - the “smart meter” part of this is irrelevant I believe.