Economy 7 - problem with Landis+Gyr meter (non-smart)

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Landis GYR+ E470 Type 5394.

NiceDogMan

Hi ... dare I ask if you have made any progress yet with your claim?

I have a similar "inexplicably high usage" issue and we also have a Landis and GYR meter ... although mine is an older non-smart meter.

Briefly ... Being fairly regular (or rather ... totally regular) creatures of habit ... I found there was a period of time when we had been charged for overnight usage within the Economy 7 (7 night-time hours) period that was amounting at times to more than twice the cost of electricity we were recorded as using during the non-Economy 7 (daytime) hours ... even though our usage patterns had not changed and we have never had an electrical item fault during that period(???).

The only item scheduled to operate on the Economy 7 Tarif we have was the domestic hot water immersion heater ... and otherwise we only have the usual items on standby overnight (tv, phone chargers, fridge/freezer etc).  This pattern has been continuously the same throughout the period we have lived at our current address - over four years.

Interestingly, when I complained to my energy supplier about the six months or so that I had found this anomaly had occurred, the following months to date have all seen a reversal to lower electrical usage overnight than during the daytime hours!!

Coincidence?

Self-rectification of a mischievous high usage item that had decided to only switch itself on overnight until it knew it had been caught out?? ... I don't think so ...

I will soon post a separate thread about the issues I have had, and hopefully it will resonate with others ... but meantime it would be great for everyone to see how your case unfolds ... please keep us updated?

Many thanks ... and GOOD LUCK with your claim!!

Reed_Richards

NiceDogMan said:

I have a similar "inexplicably high usage" issue and we also have a Landis and GYR meter ... although mine is an older non-smart meter.

Landis and Gyr made a lot of domestic meters.  If yours is a different model it probably won't have the same potential fault.  Any meter from any manufacturer could become faulty, although it's not a common occurrences.  And the solution in this case would be to have it replaced with a smart meter, making sure it is one that is suitable for Economy 7 if that is the tariff you want.  Although if you are only using Economy 7 to run the immersion heater it is probably costing you money because your day-rate tariff will be higher than otherwise.

  NiceDogMan said:

Interestingly, when I complained to my energy supplier about the six months or so that I had found this anomaly had occurred, the following months to date have all seen a reversal to lower electrical usage overnight than during the daytime hours!!

Coincidence?

Well presumably you were the one supplying the meter readings so your supplier must have snuck into your house unnoticed and fiddled with your meter to make it behave again after you complained.

Likely?

Could it be six months of winter followed by spring/summer?

If you are keen on conspiracies then a smart meter opens up many possibilities for your supplier to fiddle remotely.  I'm not aware that they can "speed-up" your night rate readings to make them larger then slow them down again when the customer complains but who knows?  On the other hand if you are keen on money-saving then a smart meter should let you switch from Economy 7 to a single rate tariff if it turns out Economy 7 is costing you money.    

Qyburn

Reed_Richards said:

If you are keen on conspiracies then a smart meter opens up many possibilities for your supplier to fiddle remotely.  I'm not aware that they can "speed-up" your night rate readings to make them larger then slow them down again when the customer complains but who knows?  

Now you've done it. Let's whether that starts circulating as another anti smart meter conspiracy theory. 

Reed_Richards

I hope not.  But it's not that difficult to test if a meter is recording accurately; the problem the OP has was that was that the excessive readings only occurred for a short while and were not spotted until after the event.

To test, switch everything off at the consumer unit and see if the meter reading continues to increase.  Switch everything off except for one device that you know the amount of power it consumes and see if the energy is recorded accurately over a period of time with it, alone, on.   

NiceDogMan

Reed_Richards: "Well presumably you were the one supplying the meter readings so your supplier must have snuck into your house unnoticed and fiddled with your meter to make it behave again after you complained.
Likely?
Could it be six months of winter followed by spring/summer?"

Heyyy Reed_Richards ... thanks for your prompt reply!  I'll have to brush up on the clever pulling of quotes people do to use in new comments ...

The timescale of this anomaly was from April to October last year ... but in real terms I don't think seasonality would genuinely have much effect on our electrical consumption other than increased usage of lighting during darker winter months ... and that doesn't really align with the period and usage rates I have been charged for.

Yes, I have been providing meter readings on the regular monthly basis ... and that has been used to justify the charges applied because there is a supplier insistence that the meter has been running "faultlessly" and the usage is due to items running at high rate of usage overnight ... which is quite simply impossible ... just as whaticallmother has experienced.

I was asked to do a "Creep Test" ... by isolating everything immediately on the domestic side after the meter (main switch OFF) ... and the (exactly as anticipated) zero consumption that resulted was claimed to be confirmation that the meter was measuring rate of usage correctly.

Really???  

Isn't that just a bit obvious ... and actually only a demonstration that there are no extraneous electrical leaks occurring between the meter and the main switch?

It troubles me that I do not feel a "Creep Test" is actually real "proof" that the meter runs correctly, and I don't know if it is possible that my Landis and Gyr E150 meter can be manipulated externally by a supplier(?).... does anyone know if this is possible?

The current Economy 7 is a hang over from the previous occupants ... it doesn't now have any appeal for us as we now (very recently) have an Air Source Heat Pump and Solar panels ...

However ... enough here, as I don't want to hijack or complicate this current thread, and so I will soon start my own thread to explore the issues I have encountered.

I hope to see you there!...

Cheers.

Reed_Richards

@NiceDogMan, you promised you would create your own thread, but you keep coming back to this one.  It would be better if you did what you said you would do.    

Qyburn

NiceDogMan said:

Hi Qyburn ... My thought about remotely being able to manipulate the meter would point to the possibility of increasing the meter displayed readings in order to charge for more electricity consumption than is actually occurring.  The general comment I currently find is that this just isn't possible, especially with a non-smart meter, but just because no-one (apparently) has yet disclosed that this MAY be possible, doesn't mean that it is definitely not possible.  

You're speculating that a secret mechanism, to allow a supplier to remotely falsify meter readings, might have been engineered into the smart meter system, even though there can be no possible justification for creating that function. That's veering well into conspiracy theory territory.

BarelySentientAI

Qyburn said:

NiceDogMan said:

Hi Qyburn ... My thought about remotely being able to manipulate the meter would point to the possibility of increasing the meter displayed readings in order to charge for more electricity consumption than is actually occurring.  The general comment I currently find is that this just isn't possible, especially with a non-smart meter, but just because no-one (apparently) has yet disclosed that this MAY be possible, doesn't mean that it is definitely not possible.  

You're speculating that a secret mechanism, to allow a supplier to remotely falsify meter readings, might have been engineered into the smart meter system, even though there can be no possible justification for creating that function. That's veering well into conspiracy theory territory.

Not only the smart meter system, maybe even all meters.  But they think this is a "reasonable challenge that deserves a fair hearing".

Reed_Richards

Supposedly 10% of the smart meters that are intended to be remotely readable (and addressable) don't actually communicate.  And to communicate they require a large box that makes the combined meter and comms hub much bigger than the non-smart meters they replace.  Now if older non-smart meters have a secret means of receiving communications and this occupies no more space than the meter itself requires and if it is there to do something nefarious then you would think that electricity suppliers could find something more nefarious to do than to boost one person's overnight readings for a six month period.  And they have left it a bit late, too, since these non-smart meters are being phased out.

My conspiracy theory is that @NiceDogMan has a neighbour who has twigged that he is a heavy sleeper who sleeps to a regular schedule.  So they have snuck round at night, plugged their electric vehicle into his outside socket and used it to charge their car overnight for free.  But one day they were almost caught so now they have stopped.  Without a smart meter, @NiceDogMan has no way to prove that that didn't happen so you can't tell me I'm wrong.       

Grizzlebeard

Aliens have to charge their ESVs and I think I almost not quite nearly caught one when I rolled home from the Pub last night.

(Electric Space Vehicles)