SMETS2 Smart Meter doesn't work properly

J4KANOR1

Hi,

I have a SMETS2 smart meter in my new build property. I've been living in the property since January last year. The energy supplier the developer used was EON Next and they appear to be the ones which installed the meter as it has their branding on it. Since the energy situation has been up in the air during this time, we remained with EON Next. From January last year until 1st April the smart meter seemed to be working flawlessly, constantly communicating readings to the energy supplier which could be seen on my energy account. However, after the 1st April for some reason the meter stopped communicating with the supplier. Luckily I noticed this fairly quickly and switched to submitting manual readings.

I contacted EON back in May to tell them that the meter didn't seem to be working correctly and they replied stating that they were aware of the issue and were working on a fix. In the meantime, I was to continue sending manual reading - no big deal, so I left it at that. The end of August came and went and the system still wasn't working so I contacted EON Next again and they came back stating that they had no control over the communication element of the meter as the communication side was dealt with by a third party network provider. They said they'd raised a concern about this and that it should be working properly again within 3 or 4 months. 

A further 5 months past and it's still not communicating any readings across to EON. So I contacted EON Next again last week to inform them it still wasn't working and whether there was anything else I could do. Their response was:

"
Smart meters are incredibly complex devices and the way that they communicate with us is not actually within EON Next's control. The parameters that enable smart meters to work are set by the Government through a number of contracted partners and OFGEM. As an energy supplier we have no control over your smart meters functionality and can provide no guarantees that the system will work flawlessly at any time. 

In April due to OFGEM's new price index (the regulator), new signals will be broadcast to both smart meters and in-home display units which will be designed to update them with the latest pricing information per kWh. We hope that this action might prompt your smart meter to start communicating with us again. If this is not the case, then it may be that your smart meter will simply not work or may require more time to re-establish a connection - we cannot give a time frame for this. In this case we would advise that you continue sending your meter readings manually for the foreseeable future and we can only apologise that we cannot help you any further with your enquiry.
" 

What I really want to know is, is this actual 'facts' that they're giving me or are they fobbing me off? As far as I was concerned a smart meter just consists of a 'meter' and a 'modem' which connects onto a local wireless or wired external network? So surely there must be a way to investigate the connection to the meter and it's not just the Governments fault as they appear to be suggesting? The first two times I contacted them they made it clear that there was some kind of procedure they were going to follow to try and get it back onto the network. But then this month they've essentially told me that there's literally nothing they can do. The smart meter has basically worked for 4 months from new and after that it's only appeared to work the same as any other standard 'dumb' meter. It's not detrimental as I don't mind sending manual readings as at least I know for definite that the data is true and accurate but at the same time it begs the question, what's the purpose of smart meters if they're apparently so complicated they're impossible to troubleshoot when you have a problem?! Also, if my smart meter can't communicate readings to the energy supplier then how's it supposed to receive updated broadcasts from OFGEM in April? Surely if it can't send data out then it shouldn't be able to receive either, or am I just getting this all wrong?

Is there anything else I could do to get it sorted as I seem to have exhausted the channel of going to my energy supplier? Or should I just leave things alone and accept that my smart meter isn't very 'smart' after all?

EssexExile

I have no idea whether what Eon are telling you is true. I had trouble with them when they updated our smart meters a while back, no end of phone calls to various parts of the world seemed to help. I then wrote a letter with "Official Complain" on the envelope and headed "Official Complaint", within a couple of days a nice young man phoned to apologise and sorted it all out.