Smart meter display doesn't agree with number on bill

AdamPar

I have an issue with my mother's electricity bill. She's actually sold her house (moved into sheltered accommodation), and this has shown up as we're closing her account.

She had a smart meter and was with Utilita on an Economy 7 tariff, and we noticed that getting the meter reading by pressing '9' was indicating a (rounded) reading of 2800 day rate, and 19200 night rate..

The night rate was in agreement with the bill, but the bill from Utilita was showing a (rounded) reading of 4100 for the day rate.

I (naively?) thought smart meters would always show the energy usage being billed by the supplier,  but there's obviously something odd going on, here.

Utilita have replied to me and said:

Regarding your enquiry and your discussion with our customer service advisor, we believe that the meter reading you are looking at is not the total reading but a ‘block’ reading or part of the total reading.
Essentially on your electric, we charge you for the first unit of each day at a higher unit rate (one block) and then we charge you for the rest of the date rate at another rate (block 2). Neither of these are the total readings but are used to calculate the total.

Is this correct/plausible? Do meters really have a 'hidden' figure that the '9' sequence doesn't display?

It seems very strange that the figures displayed on the meter itself aren't complete and there's something else there that we can't see. How are users supposed to know their bills are correct if the meters don't display the whole usage?

Unfortunately as the house has now been sold, we no longer have access to the meter to see whether there are any other hidden figures.

Thanks for any comments/feeedback as to whether I should just trust Utilita, or whether they have made an error and are trying cover it up.

Adam

molerat

Some smart meters have several different reading banks but will have a description code on the screen, what make  / model of meter is it ?

EssexHebridean

That definitely is Utilita’s charging model - it probably needs someone with a similar model of Smart meter to confirm how you go about seeing all blocks though, and when Utilita consider the starting time for the higher rated initial unit. (As I assume this will likely not be in the off peak/overnight period) 

AdamPar

It is a Secure Liberty 110, type code E1S0B1.

pochase

Utilitia  charges a higher rate for the first two units instead of charging a standing charge.

As you can potentially use less than two units day rate on any given day it would make sense if they use a separate register for the expensive units.

Is there an additional register that shows the difference of 1300KWh? 1300 divided by two units per day is about 650 days at 2 units per day. Is the smart meter around two years old.

Strange is that they are only talking about the first unit, it should say first two.

AdamPar

That kind of makes sense...it just seems rather unfortunate (even misleading) that this is hidden in the meter and all the 'blocks' aren't displayed when selecting '9' to get the rolling display. It displays the day and night readings, so why not all day readings? I did notice that it said 'B2' next to 'Day' and 'B1' next to 'Night', but I assumed B1 and B2 were the names for the day and night values. In retrospect, I guess 'Day B1' also exists but wasn't displayed.

pochase said:

Is there an additional register that shows the difference of 1300KWh? 1300 divided by two units per day is about 650 days at 2 units per day. Is the smart meter around two years old.

Strange is that they are only talking about the first unit, it should say first two.

Not that I could find, and I no longer have access to the meter, so I can't try anything else, unfortunately. I wasn't aware of the discrepancy until I contacted Utilita to close the account, and wondered why they kept asking for the readings over and over again! It's more like 4 years old...is it possible it was just one unit per day?