Octopus Energy

lillibet1963

Sorry this is a bit of a long post but I have a few questions. I hope someone can help me out.
We've had an email from Octopus Energy stating that they "were unable to take any payments from us for the period mid Feb to beg of April due to an error on their part.  However, this has now been rectified and added to your account."  Are they allowed to do this?  Has anybody else had this with this energy supplier?
Also, the smart meter given to us from Octopus is only showing us our Electricity usage no gas usage.  Is this normal?  I thought they were supposed to show both or am I wrong? If these are supposed to replace meter readings why do Octopus keep requesting meter readings from us? 

Reed_Richards

Yes, Octopus are allowed to rectify an error they made earlier this year.

You will have meters on both your electricity supply and your gas supply which you are at liberty to read.  I think the thing that Octopus gave you is an In Home Device.  This should communicate with your meters and provide you with information.  Presumably your device is not communicating with your gas meter.  This sometimes happens although ideally it shouldn't.

Presumably Octopus are requesting readings because they are not able to communicate with your smart meters.  Again this shouldn't happen but sometimes it does.

    

macman

Ask Octopus to check your smart meters if they are not communicating with the DCC. A lack of connectivity to the IHD is common and does not mean the meter itself isn't working remotely.
Of course they can correct a billing error. If this had worked in your favour, would you not be requesting an adjustment?

[Deleted User]

Also, the smart meter given to us from Octopus is only showing us our Electricity usage no gas usage.

As others have pointed out, you are looking at the In House Display which connects to your communications hub via a secure Home Area Network. The communications hub connects to the DCC Network via a separate secure Wide Area Network.

You can check whether data is available to your supplier by installing the free App BRIGHT. Hildebrand, the owner of BRIGHT, uses its own DCC-approved software (an adapter) to pull data from your meters, if BRIGHT populates, then there is no issue with the WAN.

If gas data is missing then it can be because the gas meter is not communicating with the gas proxy meter in the communications hub. The link between the two is the same network as is used for your In House Display (HAN). Common reasons for this problem include distance between the two devices; a failure to commission the gas meter properly or an issue with the communications hub. The supplier can make a request to the DCC for a remote communications hub reset.

Send an email to smart@octopus.energy with details of the issue. If my daughter’s recent experience anything to go by, Octopus may need to send out an engineer to check your smart meter set up. Installers have a habit of failing to wait for the gas meter to commission. After 59 minutes of trying, the process times out and by then the installer is installing the next smart meter.