'Broken' smart meter. Should I send manual daily readings for Octopus tracker?

VoucherMan

I've just been 'accepted' for the Octopus tracker, but for the last couple of months Octopus haven't taken any readings from my smart meter.
Is it worth sending daily readings, and would they even use them, or are their estimates generally quite good?
(My average daily electricity usage is about 4.5kWh)

TL;DR version
Since Early May my IHD has not been displaying gas usage data, and when I contacted Octopus about it they replied suggesting there's an issue with the Comms Hub, and they'd look into it & get back to me. A few emails later, I've still had no update on the smart meter issue. No doubt they're busy now, moving customers onto the tracker tariff, but I contacted them a couple of weeks before they even announced the new intake of customers, when they said they'd get back to me with a week.

Once I was aware of the problem I started sending manual readings monthly, just for the bill, and I intend to keep doing it unless/until the smart meters start sending updates again. Then I started wondering if it's worth sending daily readings to get billed more accurately.

My first issue is that they may not even use any daily figures I send, as they state:

We’ll create your bills based on half-hourly meter readings when available. If this data is missing at the point of billing we’ll use industry coefficients to estimate your consumption.

Then, with an average daily usage of about 4.5 kWh, I'm wondering if I'll use more energy sending the reading than I could potentially save.

And just to add to the quandary, I suspect accurate readings could actually cost more than using estimates.

I took figures for my last 8 days electricity usage from my IHD, and prices from https://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/North-West-England, and despite the difference in daily price, and my fluctuating usage, the cost difference between using actual or average figures was just £0.003 for the period.

I appreciate there's a large dose of crystal ball reading needed to know what's coming, but others' experience would be just as good for me.

Spoonie_Turtle

We don't yet have smart meters and I just keep an eye on the prices for when to send readings.  If it's a cheap day or two (or more) and we want to make the most of it, I'll send readings before and after so the increased usage is correctly applied to that cheap period.  Otherwise I've just been sending readings twice-monthly, but weekly would work as well.  At times when the price on Tracker is pretty stable then it doesn't really make much of a difference.

Their industry formula isn't a flat average across days, it assigns some days slightly more usage than others based on factors I don't know.

QrizB

Before I persuaded Octopus to replace my gas meter (which hadn't communicated with anything for about 12 months) I was submitting Tracker gas readings three times a month - the 10th, the 20th and at month end.

Octopus split the consumption not-quite-evenly across the period (falling daily during the first half of the year, rising daily in the second half). Something like this:

It was an approximation but it was good enough for the interim.

My meter was replaced in February, and since then they've billed accurately on the daily consumption at the daily rate applicable.

wild666

I have SMETS 1 meters and only the electric usage is sent as my IHD got water damaged in the floods of 2015/16 I have to do manual gas readings for gas. I opted for both electric and gas tracker tariffs but I'm wondering if they can get readings for gas without an IHD as they obviously do for electric. 
My gas usage per day in Summer is about 0.5 kWh or 3.5 kWh per week. In winter it's higher but I only use about 160 kWh per month due to my set up and how I use the heating.

[Deleted User]

wild666 said:

I have SMETS 1 meters and only the electric usage is sent as my IHD got water damaged in the floods of 2015/16 I have to do manual gas readings for gas. I opted for both electric and gas tracker tariffs but I'm wondering if they can get readings for gas without an IHD as they obviously do for electric. 
My gas usage per day in Summer is about 0.5 kWh or 3.5 kWh per week. In winter it's higher but I only use about 160 kWh per month due to my set up and how I use the heating.

You have lost me. The IHD plays no part in the process of getting meter readings to a supplier. The key component is the communications hub which has a wide area network (WAN) connection to the DCC network.

QrizB

wild666 said:

I have SMETS 1 meters and only the electric usage is sent as my IHD got water damaged in the floods of 2015/16 I have to do manual gas readings for gas. I opted for both electric and gas tracker tariffs but I'm wondering if they can get readings for gas without an IHD as they obviously do for electric.

Your supplier receives data from the meters via the comms hub and the DCC. The IHD plays no part in the process.

Boris_Blank

Just joined Tracker on 1st July.   Similar situation, both my meters are SMETS 1, Electricity meter works fine, Gas is dumb.  Funny enough, just as I joined Octopus the Gas meter 'woke up' for a few days, recorded the usage etc then went back to sleep a few days later.

Octopus did say in the invitation email: 
"Good news  -  we’ve checked your smart meter and we’re ready to start your switch to Tracker."

And also:
"We’ll create your bills based on half-hourly meter readings when available. If this data is missing at the point of billing we’ll use industry coefficients to estimate your consumption."

So hopefully all will be well one way or another although I'll still send in manual readings every so often - I'll go with weekly first and see how it goes.

VoucherMan

I'm getting mixed messages from Octopus now, so don't even know if I'm on the tracker.

On one hand I've had messages stating that I'm on the tracker, and it will be backdated to July 1st. Then I get a reply from customer service saying 'we do need functioning smart meters for the tracker tariff to work'.

Despite being told I'm on the tracker, my online account is still claiming I'm on a standard flexible tariff.

They've booked an engineer's visit, but they're not due for another month. Meanwhile I'm going with the opinion that the smart meters are functioning. It's simply the comms hub that has a problem.

Boris_Blank

Well, I provided a reading on Friday for both Gas and Electicity.  Electricity, the Smart meter works and Octopus has all the readings they need, being read every half hour and billed on the average rate per day for usage.   As for Gas, the meter is now "dumb", they used my submitted reading for the past 6 days and they then appeared to roughly average the submitted figure  across the week and billed me accordingly  based upon what their calculation was for how much gas was used at the appropriate rate for that day.