Recommendations for electricity companies

MattMattMattUK

mrsyardbroom said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Can you take a clearer and higher resolution image of the screen please? Also, is that water marks and damage on the meter?

I will do later. I took this is a bit of a hurry as I'm just going out. I don't know what you think you can do though as the Octopus technical team have given me their best advice. The reason I posted on here is that I feel I'm getting very poor customer service. I've begged them to at least reply to my emails and they haven't bothered to get in touch. Promises of letting me know within 24 hours have been broken. I just don't want to deal with people like this. Bulb were much better at dealing with customers.

There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on here, some who could help in this case used to install or certify meters, it is amazing how many times they can guide people to the correct answer. 

The other side is that Octopus are generally regarded as the best customer service in the market, Bulb were known for not being great whilst in administration and the others all vary from barely tolerable to downright awful. Also if you do not have an accurate read on the meter you cannot change supplier anyway, so that needs to be resolved before you do move or it will either stop you from changing, or create a total nightmare at some point in the future. 

chris_n

Keep pressing button B until you get to total import screen. I know its EDF but it is the correct meter type.
www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/r861b_sme_aw1_e4.pdf

[Deleted User]

The meter in the photo is an Aclara SMETS1 (formerly GE). The SUPPLIER does indeed need special software to read the smart meter - known as an Adapter: the CUSTOMER does not. Identifying the exact meter model can be tricky but this guide might help (in addition to the advice above):

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/smart-meters-136/smets1-aclara-smart-meter-guide-9003

I would make one additional point. Smart meters do not have day and night registers AND there is no convention of which of the 4 smart meters are to be used for E7. If asked for meters, the customer should respond with R1 and R2.

Gerry1

Read the TOU Rate 1 and TOU Rate 2 values mid morning and mid evening.  One is likely to have increased but the other should remain unchanged.

Make sure that the one that has increased is recorded as the Normal or Day rate on the bill.

Spoonie_Turtle

Re: rates, if you know or can find out your region, rates are here https://octopus.energy/blog/energy-price-cap-oct-2022/

But they should also show in your account online, like so

Image description: screenshot of Octopus account dashboard showing tariff type and rates.

mrsyardbroom

chris_n said:

Keep pressing button B until you get to total import screen. I know its EDF but it is the correct meter type.
www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/r861b_sme_aw1_e4.pdf

Thank you for trying to help but I have economy 7. This would be the reading if I was on a different tariff that didn't have separate rates for day and night.. Octopus don't need the total number of units used. They need the night time reading which should begin with two zeros.

mrsyardbroom

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Re: rates, if you know or can find out your region, rates are here https://octopus.energy/blog/energy-price-cap-oct-2022/

But they should also show in your account online, like so

Image description: screenshot of Octopus account dashboard showing tariff type and rates.

Thank you for this. I've found the rates now. My rates are different to this. They are

Flexible Octopus

Flexible Octopus April 2023 v1

Prices follow wholesale costs

Day Rate	Night Rate
43.47 p/kWh	15.93 p/kWh

Standing Charge
56.73p/day

(All rates inc. VAT)

mrsyardbroom

[Deleted User] said:

The meter in the photo is an Aclara SMETS1 (formerly GE). The SUPPLIER does indeed need special software to read the smart meter - known as an Adapter: the CUSTOMER does not. Identifying the exact meter model can be tricky but this guide might help (in addition to the advice above):

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/smart-meters-136/smets1-aclara-smart-meter-guide-9003

I would make one additional point. Smart meters do not have day and night registers AND there is no convention of which of the 4 smart meters are to be used for E7. If asked for meters, the customer should respond with R1 and R2.

Thank you for this and my meter is almost identical to this one. Bulb was able to read the meter successfully for my day and night readings and I had no problems with them.

[Deleted User]

mrsyardbroom said:

[Deleted User] said:

The meter in the photo is an Aclara SMETS1 (formerly GE). The SUPPLIER does indeed need special software to read the smart meter - known as an Adapter: the CUSTOMER does not. Identifying the exact meter model can be tricky but this guide might help (in addition to the advice above):

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/smart-meters-136/smets1-aclara-smart-meter-guide-9003

I would make one additional point. Smart meters do not have day and night registers AND there is no convention of which of the 4 smart meters are to be used for E7. If asked for meters, the customer should respond with R1 and R2.

Thank you for this and my meter is almost identical to this one. Bulb was able to read the meter successfully for my day and night readings and I had no problems with them.

The principle behind smart metering is ‘one supplier - one meter’. If you were with Bulb, then no other supplier can access your meter until there has been what is known as a Change of Supply. When the new supplier takes over the meter/s, it has to send out bespoke security certificates to each of your meters. These certificates protect your meters from acting on any requests from any other entity.

However, the above assumes that your SMETS1 meter has been enrolled on the DCC network. You can check the status of your meters here:

https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

mrsyardbroom

MattMattMattUK said:

Can you take a clearer and higher resolution image of the screen please? Also, is that water marks and damage on the meter?

I can't get a clearer picture as the meter is high up and opposite a large window. This causes the reflections you can see in the image. It's not water damage. The meter is in a porch and I have no curtains to try and screen it. The image below is almost identical to the meter I have. As someone else has pointed out the supplier needs special software to be able to read it. This is exactly what Octopus told me. Of course I can get the total active import but that's just a reading of the total amount of energy used. Octopus need a reading which tells them how much energy I've used at a different rate and it can't be done by the customer  with this type of meter.