Landis GYR+ E470 Type 5394

BarelySentientAI

WBCPB said:

BarelySentientAI said:

a high harmonic current contribution making the measurement circuits incorrectly interpret the power-frequency current.

Qué ???????

Not quite sure how to explain that without starting on fourier transforms - which is probably out of the scope of this board.

Measurement sees very noisy wave, accidentally translates it into a bigger (but now not noisy) wave, so it looks like more has been used.

garythegopher

Hi It's Garythegopher I am whaticallmothers Husband I really appreciate all of the comments and responses thank for taking time to help, a bit of background I am a trained electronics engineer and have worked on high voltage switch mode power supplies whilst working for my present employer. I completely agree that this level of usage especially when compared to the past three years is unexplainable and now armed with the 30 minute readings thanks to one of the comments proves technically impossible. The theory of a software patch being rolled out and quickly reverted I guess is possible but I would have thought this would have flagged up with thousands of customers relatively quickly. One comment mentioned the event logs in the meter but i'm pretty certain they would not be accessible to the consumer but would be great if someone knows how, I did read the manual but it doesn't give any detail or passwords and often logs get overwritten. (Also the theory about supply Harmonics was interesting but again I would have thought this would have at the least affected our entire estate of 16 houses, Could the Solar panel inverter have  played a part here, but during darkness I suspect not.)

 So my question is where do we turn to now as the Obudsman  has responded with the following

 "Dear Mr XXXX

Thank you for your voice message from Friday.

We can't re-open the case or re-investigate as it's already closed and you had declined the Final Decision on 2 July 2024. 

in the Decision I'd explained the Energy Ombudsman's view of your case. Whilst I empathise with your concerns over the high billing when your usage spiked, I'd covered in the Decision that as the meter increased and decreased, it's unlikely there was a fault and also that could only have been determined anyway by the meter being tested for accuracy. As the Decision covered, if there's a spike one day and it decreases the next, that means something within the property used that usage.

Evidence of further meter reads wouldn't materially affect the outcome of the Decision.

I am sorry but the case is closed with the Energy Ombudsman and we can't carry out any further review.

Regards

XXXX

Is the next step OFGEM or Small Claims Court someone mentioned insurance ?

garythegopher

Not sure if this will help but here is the Solar Panel Telemetry for those dates showing we did generate Electricity as well on those days so should have consumed less from the Grid  during daylight Hours. We also looked at our worst case scenario Day Christmas Day Two ovens on Induction Hob 1 x 3KW electric Heater Kettle etc. as the kitchen was a bit cold  and the highest we saw was 3.1Kwh per half Hour so 6.2kWh for the Hour approximately ?

Chris_b2z

garythegopher said:

The theory of a software patch being rolled out and quickly reverted I guess is possible but I would have thought this would have flagged up with thousands of customers relatively quickly.

Just a couple of points from your comments -
1. A software defect does not necessarily affect everyone in the same way. The impact may depend on your configuration or usage patterns.
2. It could also be down to human error when applying remote changes.
Unfortunately, I don't have this model of Smart Meter to test if it's possible to view the event log but the user manual suggests that it should be accessible from the 'customer menu'. Have you checked to see if a PIN is set or tried navigating to the log viewer (page 96/143) -
14.9.2 View event log
From the customer menu if the user selects the A button twice they are directed to the View Event Log display; selecting the B button will enable the Rolling Event Log Data where the meter will display the recorded event details.

Reed_Richards

It's such a pity that the OP went to the Energy Ombudsman without first consulting the collective wisdom of this forum.  The fact that it was barely possible, perhaps completely impossible, for them to draw so much power for a few days did not sway the Ombudman's decision in the absence of any explanation as to what might have gone wrong.  Lack of evidence trumped science, unfortunately.

The best we can do now is to pursue any possible explanation of the anomalous (and hugely expensive) meter readings that might be used as evidence if the matter is taken further.  If it really is possible to view the event log then that would surely be helpful.     

MeteredOut

Whilst the Ombudsman's ruling is unfortunate (but entirely expected since the OP declined their decision), that should not preclude the OP from taking things further via the small claims court. They should expect to be challenged that the Ombudsman has already made its decision and therefore be ready to show that additional evidence has come to light showing that the recorded usage cannot realistically have taken place.

The fact that the Ombudsman cannot re-open the case should not stop the OP from presenting this further evidence.

The OP suggested OfGem - I can't see them getting involved.

MP1995

As has been mentioned small claims court setting out your claim logically and factually eith the information you nkw have here as well.

Reed_Richards

When the man came to change my 60 A mains fuse for an 80 A mains fuse (and found that I already had one) he told me that these mains fuses are very slow to blow and that I would need to exceed the 80 A rating for quite a long time to cause that fuse to blow.  If the OP knew exactly what mains fuse they have (any any labelling on the case is not reliable) and could find some authoritative documentation on what it takes to blow it then they could offer that as evidence that it was not possible for them to have drawn as much power (and therefore current) as the meter says without blowing the fuse.  That's quite a tall order and they might also need a physics teacher as witness to explain the relationship between energy, power and current because you cannot expect that a court would know that.

BarelySentientAI

Reed_Richards said:

When the man came to change my 60 A mains fuse for an 80 A mains fuse (and found that I already had one) he told me that these mains fuses are very slow to blow and that I would need to exceed the 80 A rating for quite a long time to cause that fuse to blow.  If the OP knew exactly what mains fuse they have (any any labelling on the case is not reliable) and could find some authoritative documentation on what it takes to blow it then they could offer that as evidence that it was not possible for them to have drawn as much power (and therefore current) as the meter says without blowing the fuse.  That's quite a tall order and they might also need a physics teacher as witness to explain the relationship between energy, power and current because you cannot expect that a court would know that.

It's probably BS 88 (gG general purpose).  Curves are freely available online.

And yes, they are slower than people expect.  Most fuses are slower than people think.  The time-current curves go up to 10,000 seconds and by that point they are almost vertical (translating to will not blow). 

The wiring regs have tables for slowest allowable operation, which would suggest that an 80A fuse never needs to blow because of 120A. 100A through a 45A fuse might take over 15 minutes to blow.

Rough manufacturers' guidance would say that a fuse will certainly not blow until 25% above its rating, and is not guaranteed to blow until somewhere between 45% and 75% above (manufacturing and design tolerances apply).  They often provide the figure in terms of a cumulative energy figure (current squared multiplied by time) which, for example, one manufacturer's table says an 80A fuse will not blow before 24500 and will have blown before 41500 at 240V.

It's unlikely that an expert witness would be allowed for something like this in small claims.

Reed_Richards

It looks like the power being drawn for about 5 days was about 28 kW.  The highest mains voltage within allowed tolerances would be 230 V +10% = 253 V.  So the lowest current that could have been drawn for 28 kW (@ 253 V) is 111 A.  If @BarelySentientAI is correct, that should eventually blow a 60 A mains fuse but might never blow an 80 A (or greater) fuse.  Therefore it might not be possible to prove that the electrical infrastructure could not handle 28 kW.  It still seems highly improbable that the house could draw 28 kW for 5 days but then the alternative explanation of a meter malfunctioning for 5 days then righting itself also seems improbable.  Could a court reach a decision based on a balance of improbabilities and no evidence either way?