have i been overcharged by octopus- need help understanding unit rates

Scot_39

Jyana said:

When you were on the E7 tariff, you were being charged at the same energy price guarantee price but it would have been set as an average over both the day and night time rates, which is why the day time one was over 33p. So no, you were not being overcharged as such, it just seems as though you did not require being on E7 if you have gas central heating. I assume you don't use the bulk of your electricity overnight?

Well technically not exactly.

But your point about E7 remains.

Ofgem set the total price, EPG sets the discount,  and companies set their own day and night rates (55/9 an aggressive one edf em dd iirc, the OPs 43/17 etc)

The whole point is that if you use enough at night rates - the overall average for you - is less than the average single rate.

As a mechanism to help those primarily with electric - and particularly night storage electric - heating and electric hot water.

If you have neither - and these days no personal battery invertor (say in parallel with solar pv) - its pretty difficult to make E7 work out cheaper than SR.

Oops forgot the obvious - electric cars ( but then there are ev tariffs )

 But some on some deals did on as little as 30% night use.  Iirc 42% was an often quoted traditional nominal if not actually a regulatory threshold for E7. 

My balance point was close to 42% on E10 - until Jan.

As EPG is also further distorting the balance for many. Because SR and MR base prices from Ofgem are not the same.
Why E7 prices shifted 7% average in Jan, when SR average stayed fixed.
Havent been for years - although i only went back to period 5 (2.5 years as 6m) when checking Ofgem tables for my region.

Scot_39

baron777 said:

thanks dolor, i no longer have the IHD from octopus, and BG have not sent me one yet, so i have downloaded the bright app and will get this set up when i get home later, 
as previously stated, octopus were really unhelpful, just kept getting me to reset the IHD, but when i did, i lost all connections and have never been able to get it working again, 
thanks

BG will almost certainly not send you one, probably won't even be able to sell you one.
It's normally a one time deal, i.e. it comes with the meter. 
(Haven't read an exception to this here - yet)

If it fails or lose it you buy another.  And if live in a flat with a remote meter cabinet - it often won't work due to distance anyway - so frequently the installers won't even leave one if experience or initial attempt to connect fails.

You can buy another from reputable sources in region of £50-60 for many meter models - some don't cover all e.g. specific old smets1 meters -  iirc,  so do check.

And they will pair it to your physical meter - for you (need iirc meter reference number or maybe  mpan from bill etc - not just name address etc).

But many rely on phone apps these days like bright - gets daily readings if not instant.

But again check compatibility - the system they use doesn't work yet for all smart ( old yet to be enrolled to DCC smets1 iirc )

Scot_39

Raxiel said:

pochase said:

So you had an E7 tariff with Octopus, most likely you signed up for it at some point.

The reason that BG changed you to single rate is very simple. They are unable to support E7 if the customer has a smart meter. If you really would need the E7 tariff switching to BG would have been a big mistake.

As you were on the SVT you will not have been overcharged, that is just not possible. What could have happened that E7 was the wrong tariff for you, and that you paid more than on a single rate tariff, but that would have been your decision to use this tariff, or that of the occupant of your home before you and you just continued the E7 tariff they decided to go on.

As @dolor already said, switching to BG to get smart meter sorted does not make any sense at all, there is hardly anybody better than Octopus getting smart meters working, and BG might be the worst as the E7 problem shows.

If your meter is in the national database as E7, Octopus will always put you on the E7 version of whatever tariff you request from them by default. You can get the 'single price for two registers' version that costs the same as single rate, but you have to request it.

That even goes for internal switches. I was on the single price version of a fix last September when they helpfully moved everyone to the SVT following the announcement of the EPG, and they put me on E7 without asking. I had to contact them to get it changed.

Begs the question then why the OP had been put on flat rate by British gas.

Surely they have an svt e7 tariff.

I know they had masses of problems with Smart e7 and suspended meter roll out for a while - but thought that was all resolved ( for newer installs if not the back log of complaints).

Don't they use the same meter database.

Or if they did, shouldn't they have discussed options with OP.

pochase

That is exactly the rerason.

BG is not able to supply E7 on smart meters. And they just ignore the fact and put customers onto single rate, including their existing customers where they sometimes install smart meters for customers on E7.

Scot_39

pochase said:

That is exactly the rerason.

BG is not able to supply E7 on smart meters. And they just ignore the fact and put customers onto single rate, including their existing customers where they sometimes install smart meters for customers on E7.

That's awful.

They have had ages to sort the mess.  Judging when the complaints started.

Scot_39

[Deleted User] said:

baron777 said:

hi thanks for the replies guys, maybe i havent been overcharged, and the problem is that i am being charged on an E7 tariff and the day rate is higher than than the single rate BG would charge.
with regard to the smart meter, for well over a year i have been trying to get octopus to sort this out, and keep getting fobbed off with excuses like this i received in June

So after looking over your account and speaking with a metering specialist, they have advised there is a Home Area Network (HAN) issue in your area. Your meter uses the Wide Area Network (WAN) and HAN to communicate with us, your supplier.

What this means for you, unfortunately as we there is no HAN we can't communicate with your meter. It is an industry wide issue that many suppliers are struggling with, and it is being looked into. We are are actively working towards a resolution and are working as fast as we can for those affected and have no immediate fix as of yet

i dont know anything about smart meters, and switching to B Gas was a last resort, maybe i have made a mistake but i was getting nowhere with octopus, they wouldnt even send anyone out to look at the meter, 

There is something wrong with the reply that has been sent. The HAN is a network that is established by the comms hub. The gas meter connects to a gas proxy meter built into the comms hub. The comms hub connects to the DCC network via a WAN connection. The electricity meter doesn’t need the HAN to send data to the comms hub.

Qn: are you seeing any information on the In House Display?

Qn: If you download the App BRIGHT, can you see any usage data?

Qn: Did Octopus ask the DCC to carryout a 15 minute remote comms hub disconnect? This is the logical first step: the next step is to send out an engineer to pull the main fuse for 15 minutes.

Given the issues may have started on a switch to Octopus, could the OP be struggling with an old smets1 device ?

Is all that true and still upto DCC to sort the mess out for meters - even if / especially if not yet enrolled (as doesn't that infact need an active connection and firmware upgrade ?)

I looked at apps - and at time their were issues around smets1 - but there was a plan to enrol them.

One day I must sit with a bill mpan and check - but found a table other day that said liberty target was end Apr 22 - hopefully has been by now 

Just read bit on DCC about 2g and 3g network switch offs - looks like meter fitters (?) going to be busy swapping a lot of comms hubs towards end of decade.