Octopus Missing Smart Meter Data

Qyburn

Hi,
Occasionally my Smart Meter data lags behind,  both on Bright and Octopus. So far it's always caught up although Bright and Octopus don't necessarily do so at the same times.

What's happened just now is that Bright is a day behind, with only the first couple of hours from Monday. But Octopus also has a 48 hour chunk missing, from 01:00 on Thursday to 01:00 on Saturday which they've shown no sign of filling in.

Should I raise this with Octopus, or do you think they'll sort it out in their own? 

These are their readings before and after the missing segment .. 

<div>0.065	 2023-06-22T00:00:00+01:00	 2023-06-22T00:30:00+01:00</div><div>0.11	 2023-06-22T00:30:00+01:00	 2023-06-22T01:00:00+01:00</div><div>0.065	 2023-06-24T01:00:00+01:00	 2023-06-24T01:30:00+01:00</div><div>0.066	 2023-06-24T01:30:00+01:00	 2023-06-24T02:00:00+01:00</div><div>0.065	 2023-06-24T02:00:00+01:00	 2023-06-24T02:30:00+01:00</div>

Dolor

Qyburn said:

Hi,
Occasionally my Smart Meter data lags behind,  both on Bright and Octopus. So far it's always caught up although Bright and Octopus don't necessarily do so at the same times.

What's happened just now is that Bright is a day behind, with only the first couple of hours from Monday. But Octopus also has a 48 hour chunk missing, from 01:00 on Thursday to 01:00 on Saturday which they've shown no sign of filling in.

Should I raise this with Octopus, or do you think they'll sort it out in their own? 

These are their readings before and after the missing segment .. 

<div>0.065	 2023-06-22T00:00:00+01:00	 2023-06-22T00:30:00+01:00</div><div>0.11	 2023-06-22T00:30:00+01:00	 2023-06-22T01:00:00+01:00</div><div>0.065	 2023-06-24T01:00:00+01:00	 2023-06-24T01:30:00+01:00</div><div>0.066	 2023-06-24T01:30:00+01:00	 2023-06-24T02:00:00+01:00</div><div>0.065	 2023-06-24T02:00:00+01:00	 2023-06-24T02:30:00+01:00</div>

What tariff are you on? 

Octopus uses a third-party Adapter Service operated by TMA. Over the last 4 years, I have had some data loss which for those on 30 minute billing can lead to a bill failure. In such cases, Octopus carries out a manual data pull. In most cases, this enables them to issue a bill - albeit, it is late. Until you have a bill failure, I would do nothing.

FYI, Bright uses its own bespoke Adapter software and they pull data at a different time from Octopus.

Qyburn

Dolor said:

What tariff are you on? 

...
FYI, Bright uses its own bespoke Adapter software and they pull data at a different time from Octopus.

I'm on Tracker.

Last time we had missing data at billing time, it was after a power cut. Instead of just filling in the missing days, Octopus rearranged the whole period effectively ignoring all HH data and just matching overall use. However we don't really change our use based on daily pricing, so it might not make a lot of difference.

Dolor

I'm on Tracker.

The loss of 30 minute data will cause no major billing issues. It might mean that usage is averaged over the days when an index reading is not retrieved. Third-parties like BRIGHT do not get to see index readings.

Qyburn

Cheers. Do suppliers get index history, ie day by day (or half hourly for that matter), or just the index(es) at the time they request? 

Dolor

Qyburn said:

Cheers. Do suppliers get index history, ie day by day (or half hourly for that matter), or just the index(es) at the time they request? 

My understanding is that for consumers on a 30 minute meter profile, the supplier carries out a data pull once every 24 hours. The meter returns index readings and an XML file which holds the 30 minute usage data. A couple of years ago, Kaifa meters were running an empty XML file. It took 7 months and 3 firmware updates to fix the problem. It resulted in delays for those of us on 30 minute billing.

Qyburn

Dolor said:

My understanding is that for consumers on a 30 minute meter profile, the supplier carries out a data pull once every 24 hours. The meter returns index readings and an XML file which holds the 30 minute usage data.

Thanks and sorry for labouring the point, but is that a single index reading, the reading at the time of the request? Or is it index history?

Neither quite make sense, if they got half hourly index readings that would make the usage data redundant. Equally if it was just reading at time of request then how would that work for billing? If the data request on the stroke of midnight failed the a retry would be retrieving different data.

Dolor

Qyburn said:

Dolor said:

My understanding is that for consumers on a 30 minute meter profile, the supplier carries out a data pull once every 24 hours. The meter returns index readings and an XML file which holds the 30 minute usage data.

Thanks and sorry for labouring the point, but is that a single index reading, the reading at the time of the request? Or is it index history?

Neither quite make sense, if they got half hourly index readings that would make the usage data redundant. Equally if it was just reading at time of request then how would that work for billing? If the data request on the stroke of midnight failed the a retry would be retrieving different data.

Qyburn said:

Dolor said:

My understanding is that for consumers on a 30 minute meter profile, the supplier carries out a data pull once every 24 hours. The meter returns index readings and an XML file which holds the 30 minute usage data.

Thanks and sorry for labouring the point, but is that a single index reading, the reading at the time of the request? Or is it index history?

Neither quite make sense, if they got half hourly index readings that would make the usage data redundant. Equally if it was just reading at time of request then how would that work for billing? If the data request on the stroke of midnight failed the a retry would be retrieving different data.

The XML file contains usage data: that is, kWh used per 30 minutes not index readings. 

MWT

Qyburn said:

Thanks and sorry for labouring the point, but is that a single index reading, the reading at the time of the request? Or is it index history?

Neither quite make sense, if they got half hourly index readings that would make the usage data redundant. Equally if it was just reading at time of request then how would that work for billing? If the data request on the stroke of midnight failed the a retry would be retrieving different data.

There are two separate data stores in the meter, one contains the daily index history for each of the 4 registers with the data recorded close to midnight GMT each day, the other contains the 30 min usage data. One or the other can be used for billing purposes but the two are never combined.

The granularity/frequency of the data your supplier is allowed to access is determined by a combination of the options you have chosen and the rules governing access to the data.

The vast majority of suppliers just use the register data for billing, not the half-hour data.

There are tariffs from suppliers like Octopus and OVO that do use the half-hour data to provide specialist tariffs.

Qyburn

Just checked today and there's another 48 hour gap with the exact same pattern.  The previous gap (which still exists) went ..

0.065	2023-06-22T00:00:00+01:00	2023-06-22T00:30:00+01:00
0.11	2023-06-22T00:30:00+01:00	2023-06-22T01:00:00+01:00
0.065	2023-06-24T01:00:00+01:00	2023-06-24T01:30:00+01:00

The new gap is exactly the same pattern, 00:00 and 00:30 from the 25th, then next data is 01:00 on 27th ..

0.221	2023-06-25T00:00:00+01:00	2023-06-25T00:30:00+01:00
0.089	2023-06-25T00:30:00+01:00	2023-06-25T01:00:00+01:00
0.072	2023-06-27T01:00:00+01:00	2023-06-27T01:30:00+01:00