Smart meters not transmitting readings

tetheredgoat

Shell my energy supplier recently sent me an email to say my Smart meter didn't work. When questioned they said the readings it sent were intermittent possibly due to the position of the meters. I also asked if they could replace the Smart Meters for ones that did transmit readings. They said they were unlikely to work if it was likely due to the position of the meters. I am puzzled as the Smart meters were installed when I was with Pure Planet about 12 months ago and they didn't complain about intermittent readings. Shell who I was switched to, when Pure Planet failed, also used the readings transmitted to them until recently. 

My question is . . .  are energy companies obliged by law to provide their customers with working Smart Meters?  Are they obliged to fix the problem of them allegedly not receiving transmitted readings?  As a result, I presume I will not qualify for the £100 discount being offered under the National Grids "Demand Flexibility Service".

Is anybody else having the same difficulty with their energy supplier?

QrizB

tetheredgoat said:

My question is . . .  are energy companies obliged by law to provide their customers with working Smart Meters?  Are they obliged to fix the problem of them allegedly not receiving transmitted readings?

Effective meters? Yes. Smart meters working in smart mode? No.

Are they obliged to fix the problem of them allegedly not receiving transmitted readings?

Obliged? No, not at present, although they should make reasonable efforts to resolve this sort of problem. some suppliers are better at this than others.

As a result, I presume I will not qualify for the £100 discount being offered under the National Grids "Demand Flexibility Service".

There is no £100 discount, that's just a number to get your attention. However you are correct that without a "smart" smart meter you won't be eligible for the scheme.

Is anybody else having the same difficulty with their energy supplier?

Yes, I've had the same problem with my gas meter for 14 months now. My current supplier Octopus are meant to have one of the better smart meter teams but they seem uninterested in actually doing anything.

tetheredgoat

I find it odd that both gas and electric smart meters were working, and they were used for my bills until recently. If it's a positional problem, which is suggested, what has changed . . . nothing that I can tell. One lives in a cupboard under the stairs, the other one outside. The electric meter takes its supply from mains electric, the gas meter a battery which I understand lasts a few years. My meters were installed only 12 months ago.

Anyway, good to hear I'm not alone with not so smart meters . . . or energy supplier ?

macman

What has changed is possibly the reception available from the mobile mast that the meter's data unit is (hopefully) connected to. Almost anything could affect that: tree growth, new buildings, atmospherics...

RoverBoyo

I had my smart meters installed by Green Energy Network a couple of months before they went under. They worked fine until EDF took them over several month later and now EDF are telling me the Gas meter is not properly commissioned. I can get a manual reading for it but they apparently can't get a remote reading. I've wasted too much of my life on trying to sort it out, so now I just send them a manual reading for Gas every so often.
Seems like the process of transferring the meters across is not always smooth.

QrizB

tetheredgoat said:

I find it odd that both gas and electric smart meters were working, and they were used for my bills until recently. If it's a positional problem, which is suggested, what has changed . . . nothing that I can tell.

They don't know it's a positional problem in your case. Either that's what their script tells them to tell you, or it's something the CS agent has picked up from somewhere and s/he thinks they're being helpful by telling you this.

The electric meter takes its supply from mains electric, the gas meter a battery which I understand lasts a few years. My meters were installed only 12 months ago.

Above the electricity meter (attahced to it, in most cases) is a communications (comms) hub. This hub establishes a local Zigbee network - the Home Area Network (HAN) - that your electricity meter, gas meter and in-home display each connect to. The hub also connects back to the national Data Collection Company (DCC) via a Wide Area Network (WAN) - which is how your readings are transmitted, how your energy co sends out tariff updates, and how the DCC can send revised firmware to your meters.

There are two things you can check:

• Does your IHD have a menu or screen that shows you the HAN status? Is everything connected?
• On the comms hub there will be some LEDs (most likely two if you're in the north, or five if you're in the south). Are these flashing ever 5 seconds or so?
  

[Deleted User]

Just download and sign up for the app BRIGHT. If the App populates with data then your meters are connected to the DCC network and working.

If your gas meter is no longer commissioned (which I find odd) then a good smart meter team can talk you through the process. Once the supplier has set up the commissioning process at its end, then it is a simple 2 button press on the meter.

FWiW, my gas supply was SolR’ed to EDF last December. My fully working gas meter went dumb only to return to full working order on the day that my supply transferred to Octopus. Throughout, BRIGHT was populating with data. My guess would be a security certificate issue with the meter. Meters will only respond to a data request if they have been set up by the designated supplier to expect instructions and messages. This is to maintain the ‘one supplier: one meter’ layered security built into the system. 

robbo990

Might be worth installing the Bright app on a phone or tablet. You will be able to see the daily/monthly/yearly usage - using the data received by the DCC. You will be able to determine then if data is missing due to the smart meters not transmitting data. A neighbour on Octopus was told their meter wasn't sending readings yet bright showed all information. Turned out to be a data entry error.

tetheredgoat

QrizB said:

There are two things you can check:

• Does your IHD have a menu or screen that shows you the HAN status? Is everything connected?
• On the comms hub there will be some LEDs (most likely two if you're in the north, or five if you're in the south). Are these flashing ever 5 seconds or so?

the IHD shows gas meter connected, electric meter connected, and connected to meter network
the 2 LEDs on the comms hub are flashing every 5 seconds.

RoverBoyo

Will try Bright, already use Hugo and Loop and data comes through to those most of the time.

tetheredgoat

interestingly (for me at least)  the IHD shows the current daily standing charge, post the latest price hike and agrees with that on my October bill.  That must have been transmitted since I got the email advising me my smart meter wasn't working.