EDF Poteential Problems with New Smart Meters

JayMNa

My old meters got changed to smart ones a week ago by EDF, it took a few days for them to establish connection with EDF. Now that connection has been lost so on the website under my account there was a message that meter reading was needed. It seems very difficult for EDF to understand that the gas reading with the new meter is 0 so I typed 1. Leccy reading was easier to enter, that was 14. Obviously before 1st July I manually entered the old meter readings.

It'll be interesting to see the new bill when ever that comes whether it shows the old readings 17053 and 9450, and the the new readings. The installer made a note of the old readings and I assume he also communicated them to EDF.

I know it a very difficult concept for EDF to understand: new meters, readings start from zero. Anyone else had a similar problem? I probably shouldn't have had the smart meters installed so close to tariff change date but my 30 years old meter certification age was expiring in July, installed in July 1993.

[Deleted User]

JayMNa said:

My old meters got changed to smart ones a week ago by EDF, it took a few days for them to establish connection with EDF. Now that connection has been lost so on the website under my account there was a message that meter reading was needed. It seems very difficult for EDF to understand that the gas reading with the new meter is 0 so I typed 1. Leccy reading was easier to enter, that was 14. Obviously before 1st July I manually entered the old meter readings.

It'll be interesting to see the new bill when ever that comes whether it shows the old readings 17053 and 9450, and the the new readings. The installer made a note of the old readings and I assume he also communicated them to EDF.

I know it a very difficult concept for EDF to understand: new meters, readings start from zero. Anyone else had a similar problem? I probably shouldn't have had the smart meters installed so close to tariff change date but my 30 years old meter certification age was expiring in July, installed in July 1993.

You shouldn’t be entering any meter readings so soon after a meter change. It can take a couple of weeks for the various industry processes to complete before your meters are fully commissioned and ready for billing. Have you received ESME and GSME messages on your IHD? Smart meters hold import readings and usage data for 13 months, and export data for 3 months. This data can be retrieved by your supplier.

The danger of giving a meter reading now is that it will be used to bill you as if you still had your old meters.

JayMNa

But I logged into my EDF account and the gas meter was flagged saying no connection and that the meter reading was needed to be entered. Under my account the meter serial numbers have been updated to match the new meters so they must see somewhere that I have new meters, surely they also must see that my meters were changed.

Swipe

Unfortunately, EDF billing and logic don't go hand in hand.

[Deleted User]

JayMNa said:

But I logged into my EDF account and the gas meter was flagged saying no connection and that the meter reading was needed to be entered. Under my account the meter serial numbers have been updated to match the new meters so they must see somewhere that I have new meters, surely they also must see that my meters were changed.

Have you had ‘ESME commissioned’ and ‘GSME commissioned’ messages on your IHD? These tell you that the commissioning process is complete. A key part of the commissioning process is the sending out of bespoke security certificates by the supplier to each of your meters. Until this process has been completed, your supplier cannot undertake a daily data pull from each of your meters.

the gas meter was flagged saying no connection

Can you see any gas data on your IHD? If you can’t, then my guess would be that the installer has left before the commissioning process completed. If the DCC network is busy, commissioning times out after 59 minutes. 

JayMNa

Thanks Dolor. I can see data on IHD, it says "used so far today £0.96" for leccy and £0.29, 0.00kwh for gas. No messages about commissioning although the gizmo has been switched off, I just powered it up.

The actual gas smart meter says since 26th June I've used 00000.256m3.

JayMNa

To add, on the website for leccy I see

Current status Good – you don't need to do anything

Hide details

Meter serial no. 22JXXXXXXXXX

Everything's working and we're receiving your meter readings

For gas I get

We're carrying out checks on your smart meter – please send us a reading

Hide details

Meter serial no. E6SXXXXXXXXXX

We've noticed that your smart meter hasn't sent us a reading recently. These are normally sent automatically. This could be due to a temporary loss of connection or another reason. Our smart meter team is looking to reconnect to your smart meter remotely.

[Deleted User]

OK. The smart gas meter connects to a gas proxy meter built into the communications hub. The connection is via the Home Area Network established by the communications hub. This is the same network that your IHD uses to connect to the communications hub.

The communications hub connects to the DCC network via what is known as a Wide Area Network connection. Clearly, if your supplier is getting electricity readings then there is nothing wrong with the communications hub or the WAN.  If your IHD is showing a gas usage figure, then there must have been a HAN connection between the gas meter and communications hub at sometime. Having read your post, I suspect that the issue is the distance between the gas meter and the communications hub. If this is the issue then there is now a technical solution. The supplier will have to fit a dual-band communications hub and dual band gas meter to improve the communication strength between the two devices.

My experience of EDF and smart metering 6 months ago was not good. My gas meter had no issues until I was switched under SoLR terms to EDF. EDF then claimed that they couldn't access any gas data. I immediately switched to Octopus and my gas meter started working normally again. Read into that what you will.

Swipe

If it's any help, when EDF fitted my smart meter the IHD worked right off the bat but it took a couple of weeks for commissioning to take place. You'll get a new message pop up on the IHD when it's been done.

JayMNa

I assume the communication hub is the leccy smart meter. Gas meter and leccy meter are both in the garage on opposite walls, distance about 3 yards, nothing between them except air.

[Deleted User]

JayMNa said:

I assume the communication hub is the leccy smart meter. Gas meter and leccy meter are both in the garage on opposite walls, distance about 3 yards, nothing between them except air.

The communications hub is connected to, but not part of, the electricity meter. The HAN uses Zigbee wifi which is subject to local interference from adjacent wiring; metal etc.