Smart meter numbers

Cupcakes1600

Sorry if this is long and boring/confusing but it is!
We had until yesterday a Smet 1 electric meter that wasn't always communicating with Shell energy so they asked me for electricity readings and photos of the reading. I have been doing this for months and they have been billing me based on my reading. I have been pressing 9 on the meter and giving them the first set of numbers (the meter had a and b buttons in blue and red).
About three weeks ago the meter started communicating and the figure they got was much lower than my figures so they recalculated my bills and now I have a credit on the account. 

Due to the issues I had a Smet 2 meter installed yesterday and the engineer said I should have been supplying them with the second set of figures that show on the screen and not the first. He has now given them this second set reading. This number is much lower again so presumably I will be in more credit but everything I read says it is the first set I should be using. Does anyone know what the second set means? We aren't on Economy 7 but we do have solar panels. I did say it was boring! I am not obviously complaining if I will be in credit but just confused! The gas meter is fine and the first set of figures are the ones that my bill is based on as these are the figures the smart meter sends to Shell.

[Deleted User]

I'm scratching my head a bit - the only thing I can think of based on my own smart meter (which is SMETS 2 and Economy 7) is maybe the reading is an export reading. If you have solar panels and are a low user, it's quite possible that you've been generating a lot of electricity in the sunny weather which has been reducing your import and increasing your export to the point where you export more than you import (if that makes sense ). You could maybe check the readings after the sun goes down this evening and before it comes up in the morning and see if the first (higher) reading has changed. If it's the same that might point towards it being export. But to finish this post as I started, I'm scratcing my head and this is just a theory and the best I can think of. Hopefully someone with the same type of meter will be able to give you a better answer.

QrizB

This problem crops up now and again. It's likely that the engineer is technically correct but, in practice, is wrong. Let me explain why I say this.

A couple of questions:

• Have you lived in the house from the day the old meter was fitted, or was it already in place when you moved in?
• Have you always been with Shell, or did you switch to them after the old meter was fitted?
  

From what you've said, your old smart meter was a Secure Liberty 100. There are two different ways of reading these, using either the 6 button or the 9 button. The 9 button (the one you've been using) gives you the total number of kWh imported, while the 6 button gives you the individual register readings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFeQ_y5LRrM

It's likely that, at some time in its life, the meter has been used for a dual-rate tariff. This will have resulted in some electricity use being recorded on each of the R01 and R02 registers that are displayed when the 6 button is pressed. The total of these two numbers is the value shown when the 9 button is pressed. (This doesn't necessarily mean Economy 7; for example, British Gas used to habe a "free electricity at weekends" promotion on some tariffs. They used a separate register for this.)

If you've *always* given Shell the 9 reading, as your opening reading when you joined them and at every time after that, then Shell have been billing you correctly. You are not owed a refund from Shell.