Octopus energy, their cumulative meter total on your account doesn't match smart actual meter

mmmmikey

Reed_Richards said:

victor2 said:

Reed_Richards said:

Qyburn said:

Reed_Richards said:

If you are on a Time of Use tariff that uses half hourly meter readings (and Agile is one such) then your supplier will bill you according to the 30 minute meter readings.  It doesn't matter what the total meter reading is.    

He's on Tracker which is a sort of hybrid. Normally it's billed on each day's consumption figures. But if the total doesn't match the change in meter index over the billed period, they "adjust" the daily figures to compensate. Hence a monstrous over estimated manual reading has royally screwed up billing for that period and the next.

I'd suggest asking Octopus if they could delete the erroneous reading and re-bill for the period before and after.

I am not a client of Octopus and my impression is that some of their tariffs are unnecessarily complicated.  Unless your meter is faulty, how can the total of all the daily consumption figures fail to match the change in the meter index? 

It's only happened when the OP gives a reading from one register and the readings Octopus are getting comes from another.

So the fundamental error was giving a reading at all instead of trusting the smart meter to provide all the necessary information?

No, there are occasions when some customers do need to give the energy company a reading. For example if you are unlucky and have a smart meter that doesn't communicate reliably with the supplier you will need to give them readings from time to time. It's also, IMHO, fair game for customers to able to read their own meters from time to time to check the billing or when changing suppliers.

The fundamental error was not realising that the meter stores several readings and you need to give them the right one. 

I'm sure that the OP isn't alone in not knowing that and I personally think that the energy companies could and should be much better at explaining how to read a smart meter than they are. It's hardly surprising that someone on a single rate tariff would look at their meter, see a reading on the display and automatically think that is the correct reading to use. I would also question the design of the smart meter menus as many of them are anything but intuitive to use. 

On top of that I really think that the energy companies back end systems should be better at detecting spurious readings. It doesn't seem to me to be unreallistic to have a system that realises that a submitted reading is completely out of range of previous readings and generate an error message advising the customer to contact customer services if they really believe the reading is correct. That's exactly what happens when I submit my FIT readings to EDF - if it's a long way from what's expected you have to say why and then it gets reviewed by a real person.

Reed_Richards

From time to time my Eon Next account shows reading taken by a "meter reader" instead of from the smart meter.  No human meter reader has ever visited.  One of these meter reader readings is dated the day before a smart meter reading and must be broadly correct.  The other meter reading is manifestly wrong because the previous and the following smart meter readings are far higher.  But unlike with Agile Octopus, one bad reading has no effect whatsoever on my bill, because I. was not billed until after the next smart reading so the false reading is effectively obliterated

t0rt0ise

Anyway good luck with getting it sorted out. If it were me I'd send a direct message on twitter saying that you gave a duff reading. In my experience they understand far better than the other routes to customer service.

Qyburn

Reed_Richards said:
Unless your meter is faulty, how can the total of all the daily consumption figures fail to match the change in the meter index? 

We've had that following a power cut. Obviously while the power's off no consumption is recorded and presumably the index doesn't increment. But I think the 1/2 hour during which the power failed doesn't get correctly recorded.

WBCPB

I have the same problem as the OP, since my move from Go to Agile the Smets2 meter is still showing two registers, Rate1 and Rate2, is this normal with Agile? but Octopus seem to be only interested in Rate1 when checking my meter reading history on the app.
Therefore Rate2 totals are not showing on my account, even though i give meter readings monthly [ at the request of Octopus and with NO missing data] by adding both rates together as the online portal does not now give the option of submitting two separate readings as previously, also the actual bill does not seem to show any meter readings just total consumption in kwh.
I do keep a check on my total usage but do worry that if i ever moved home or supplier that my supplied final meter reading + photos would be approx. 2500kwh more than is showing on my online portal.
I thought there was a "mysterious 3rd party" that intervened if meter readings were not in the "norm", so far my readings are:

Feb 14th 2024 13480 - my reading of both registers added together
March 14th 2024 10998 - Octopus smart meter reading
April 14th 2024 11274 - Octopus smart meter reading
April 20th 2024 14053 - my reading of both registers added together

Should i be concerned?

Netexporter

Should i be concerned?

No. Imagine you had a 2 rate mechanical meter for Economy 7, then you went over to a single rate tariff. The R2 index would still be there (they sometimes put a bit of tape over it, to prevent confusion) but wouldn't move.

The cumulative (total import) index should be ignored unless you are absolutely sure a smart meter has never been used on a multi-rate tariff.

WBCPB

Netexporter said:

Should i be concerned?

No. Imagine you had a 2 rate mechanical meter for Economy 7, then you went over to a single rate tariff. The R2 index would still be there (they sometimes put a bit of tape over it, to prevent confusion) but wouldn't move.

The cumulative (total import) index should be ignored unless you are absolutely sure a smart meter has never been used on a multi-rate tariff.

So when submitting my manual meter reading i should just submit Rate1 & ignore Rate2 as Octopus seem to be doing?

Netexporter

Yes. It is unfortunate that most smart meters show the cumulative reading as the default. Not an issue in probably 95% of cases but can cause problems. There was a problem with British Gas smart meter readings, a few years ago, where a defunct free electricity tariff would render the cumulative incorrect, so they had to issue instructions to meter readers to only read the RI index.

WBCPB

My default screen shows R1, i have to go hunting through 10 screens to find my cumulative reading.
Edit:
Both R1 and R2 registers are increasing daily, should i still not be concerned?

Netexporter

Both R1 and R2 registers are increasing daily, should i still not be concerned?

That is a bid odd. Are they going up by the same amount?