Tomato Energy (Electric Only Supplier) - Too Good To Be True ?

Doc_N

Qyburn said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

For quite some time I have been pondering switching to TE when my Tracker Dec 23 comes to an end. Taking a distance view, just the sheer volume of correspondence in this forum over the admin problems, mistakes and hassle gives me serious doubts over whether the savings would justify a switch.

See if you can find actual experience from people with solar panels. Two points of concern. (1) If you admit to solar panels at the quote stage, all prices increase. (2) What's the current situation with export payments? They told me they don't pay anything, but I've seen others comment that they pay 7p and insist on taking over export as well as import.

Octopus pay 15p for export - one reason I'm still with them.

masonic

Chrysalis said:

Is there a way to see the actual meter reading on the data instead of consumption, 10 January full of holes, but there is a 1am value.  But its merely shown as consumption even in the downloaded spreadsheet.
Also Jan 14 has disappeared, so as of right now I am on a day and half lag.  So if you guys are still getting current day a few hours behind, it looks like thats not a universal thing.

I'm not sure what you mean about "actual meter reading", everything is consumption based for me. Apart from a blip at the weekend, my data has been updating at least 2-3 times per day, sometimes more. Given Farouk's apparent incredulity over meter readings, I suspect you'd be better off downloading full consumption data (e.g. from n3rgy) in case of persistent gaps. That's what I'm doing.

I just had the fabled phonecall from them to see if everything is ok and to explain how things worked. I used it to flag that they'd not acknowledged my meter readings sent by email (2 registers so couldn't input online). The guy who called seemed competent, took readings again over the phone just in case they weren't already processed. We shall see what becomes of that.

Chrysalis

Well consumption will be calculated from readings.  So they just hiding the reading and showed the calculation consumption instead, I assume as most people dont understand much about energy measurements.

Anyway, I am back here as I have just had a customer satisfaction call from TE, the operator verified my first 2 days are complete on the internal systems, so its a mywatts specific issue not graphing the data.  They also said thank you for me submitting a reading.  I didnt mention my slow updates (compared to other customers). 

I will setup n3rgy today, maybe 3rd time lucky for fast and complete data.   My guy was competent for sure, we had a chat about the TOU concept and some other things.

masonic

Chrysalis said:

Well consumption will be calculated from readings.  So they just hiding the reading and showed the calculation consumption instead, I assume as most people dont understand much about energy measurements.

You seem to have that backwards, readings are calculated from consumption, not vice versa.

What the meter actually records is consumption data. It has half hour registers, which is what is used to generate bills on TOU tariffs like Agile Octopus/Go and TE Smile/Lifestyle. It also has a separate set of cumulative registers for meter readings, but unless I am mistaken these only record the current cumulative total of consumption, unlike the HH data this is not a time-series. You cannot poll the meter for the reading at say 14:30 on 13th Jan, only the current reading. But you could use the HH data to calculate what the reading would have been.

There are usually also daily registers for the previous X days, last week, last month, last year, but again, these are consumption figures, not based on the meter reading at the time.

Chrysalis

masonic said:

Chrysalis said:

Well consumption will be calculated from readings.  So they just hiding the reading and showed the calculation consumption instead, I assume as most people dont understand much about energy measurements.

You seem to have that backwards, readings are calculated from consumption, not vice versa.

What the meter actually records is consumption data. It has half hour registers, which is what is used to generate bills on TOU tariffs like Agile Octopus/Go and TE Smile/Lifestyle. It also has a separate set of cumulative registers for meter readings, but unless I am mistaken these only record the current cumulative total of consumption, unlike the HH data this is not a time-series. You cannot poll the meter for the reading at say 14:30 on 13th Jan, only the current reading. But you could use the HH data to calculate what the reading would have been.

There are usually also daily registers for the previous X days, last week, last month, last year, but again, these are consumption figures, not based on the meter reading at the time.

Fair enough, Octopus do provide readings alongside consumption on the mobile app (not verified, according to a poster on here), and once per bill on both website and app, it would be nice to show it for informational purposes I suppose at least once per billing period. 

masonic

Chrysalis said:

masonic said:

Chrysalis said:

Well consumption will be calculated from readings.  So they just hiding the reading and showed the calculation consumption instead, I assume as most people dont understand much about energy measurements.

You seem to have that backwards, readings are calculated from consumption, not vice versa.

What the meter actually records is consumption data. It has half hour registers, which is what is used to generate bills on TOU tariffs like Agile Octopus/Go and TE Smile/Lifestyle. It also has a separate set of cumulative registers for meter readings, but unless I am mistaken these only record the current cumulative total of consumption, unlike the HH data this is not a time-series. You cannot poll the meter for the reading at say 14:30 on 13th Jan, only the current reading. But you could use the HH data to calculate what the reading would have been.

There are usually also daily registers for the previous X days, last week, last month, last year, but again, these are consumption figures, not based on the meter reading at the time.

Fair enough, Octopus do provide readings alongside consumption on the mobile app (not verified, according to a poster on here), and once per bill on both website and app, it would be nice to show it for informational purposes I suppose at least once per billing period. 

It was a while ago, but I spent two stints on Agile and one long one on Go Faster, and none of these bills had any meter readings. I started seeing these when I moved to Tracker though as this is a readings-based tariff.

Octopus always took smart readings when a bill was triggered regardless of tariff and I had access to these via the app (formerly the website).

I am not convinced TE will be taking any smart readings, or that they currently have the capability to do so.

Qyburn

Doc_N said:

Qyburn said:
See if you can find actual experience from people with solar panels. Two points of concern. (1) If you admit to solar panels at the quote stage, all prices increase. (2) What's the current situation with export payments? They told me they don't pay anything, but I've seen others comment that they pay 7p and insist on taking over export as well as import.

Octopus pay 15p for export - one reason I'm still with them.

Same here. Also I can't anyway unless/until my smart meter gets fixed. If that gets resolved then TE could be a great Winter tariff when little gets exported anyway. And assuming you're not forced onto the higher "solar panels" pricing.

Chrysalis

masonic said:

Chrysalis said:

masonic said:

Chrysalis said:

Well consumption will be calculated from readings.  So they just hiding the reading and showed the calculation consumption instead, I assume as most people dont understand much about energy measurements.

You seem to have that backwards, readings are calculated from consumption, not vice versa.

What the meter actually records is consumption data. It has half hour registers, which is what is used to generate bills on TOU tariffs like Agile Octopus/Go and TE Smile/Lifestyle. It also has a separate set of cumulative registers for meter readings, but unless I am mistaken these only record the current cumulative total of consumption, unlike the HH data this is not a time-series. You cannot poll the meter for the reading at say 14:30 on 13th Jan, only the current reading. But you could use the HH data to calculate what the reading would have been.

There are usually also daily registers for the previous X days, last week, last month, last year, but again, these are consumption figures, not based on the meter reading at the time.

Fair enough, Octopus do provide readings alongside consumption on the mobile app (not verified, according to a poster on here), and once per bill on both website and app, it would be nice to show it for informational purposes I suppose at least once per billing period. 

It was a while ago, but I spent two stints on Agile and one long one on Go Faster, and none of these bills had any meter readings. I started seeing these when I moved to Tracker though as this is a readings-based tariff.

Octopus always took smart readings when a bill was triggered regardless of tariff and I had access to these via the app (formerly the website).

I am not convinced TE will be taking any smart readings, or that they currently have the capability to do so.

Yeah its not on the bill, its in the previous meter readings section, however this link wasnt accessible from my control panel, I got the link from a search result.  I think they perhaps hide it for smart meter customers?  In the previous reading section for my account they update it for every issued bill, last one on 22 December.  Its also used for the supplier handover and DCC validation process according to Octopus website.

Ildhund

masonic said:

You cannot poll the meter for the reading at say 14:30 on 13th Jan, only the current reading. 

I'm not sure that this is universally correct. My meter takes a snapshot of the register values each day at midnight and stores them for a month, as I think SMETS2 requires. These are the figures that non-ToU-plan customers are billed by. So my supplier (but no-one else, I think) can poll the meter for any midnight reading for the preceding 31 days.

Sure, readings are accumulated from consumption, so "readings are calculated from consumption" is correct. But this accumulation is separate from what is captured in each half-hour bucket.

masonic

Ildhund said:

masonic said:
You cannot poll the meter for the reading at say 14:30 on 13th Jan, only the current reading.

I'm not sure that this is universally correct. My meter takes a snapshot of the register values each day at midnight and stores them for a month, as I think SMETS2 requires. These are the figures that non-ToU-plan customers are billed by. So my supplier (but no-one else, I think) can poll the meter for any midnight reading for the preceding 31 days.
Sure, readings are accumulated from consumption, so "readings are calculated from consumption" is correct. But this accumulation is separate from what is captured in each half-hour bucket.

Yes, you are correct about the daily readings according to this technical spec, albeit with a requirement for 12 and 14 days of capture in the two respective stores (perhaps this is routinely improved by manufacturers). But to get intra-day readings, the consumption data would need to be used. For reference I've included the relevant data requirements below. The difference between these registers or buckets is in the timing of the consumption being accumulated within, but it is the same consumption that is being measured and used to increment the respective entries.

"5.6.4.3 Active Import Register
The register recording the cumulative Active Energy Imported."

"5.6.4.9 Billing Data Log
A log for storing the following UTC date and time stamped entries:
i. twelve entries comprising Tariff TOU Register Matrix(5.6.4.34), Tariff TOU Block Register Matrix(5.6.4.35), the Active Import Register(5.6.4.3) and the Active Export
Register(5.6.4.2);
ii. five entries comprising prepayment credits;
iii. ten entries comprising time-based debt payments;
iv. ten entries comprising payment-based debt payments; and
v. twelve entries comprising Meter Balance(5.6.4.24), Emergency Credit Balance(5.6.4.15), Accumulated Debt Register(5.6.4.1), Payment Debt Register(5.6.4.25) and Time Debt Registers [1 … 2](5.6.4.36),"

"5.6.4.11 Cumulative and Historical Value Store
A store capable of holding the following values:
i. nine Days of Consumption comprising the current Day and the prior eight Days, in kWh and Currency Units;
ii. six Weeks of Consumption comprising the current Week and the prior five Weeks, in kWh and Currency Units; and
iii. fourteen months of Consumption comprising the current month and the prior thirteen months, in kWh and Currency Units."

"5.6.4.13 Daily Read Log
A log for storing fourteen UTC date and time stamped entries of the Tariff TOU Register Matrix(5.6.4.34), the Tariff TOU Block Register Matrix(5.6.4.35), the Active Import Register(5.6.4.3) and the Active Export Register(5.6.4.2) arranged as a circular buffer such that when full, further writes shall cause the oldest entry to be overwritten."

"5.6.4.14 Daily Consumption Log
A log for storing 731 date stamped entries of Consumption arranged as a circular buffer such that when full, further writes shall cause the oldest entry to be overwritten."

"5.6.4.34 Tariff TOU Register Matrix
A 1 x 48 matrix for storing Tariff Registers for Time-of-use Pricing"