How should I read a meter with usage on two registers?

masonic

Having recently left Octopus Energy, and a part of my negotiations with them over my change of supply reading, I was told the following:

"I want to clarify that we currently hold only one reading, which is the T01 register. As you mentioned, we have billed you based solely on this reading. When customers are on a single rate, suppliers typically use the T01 reading rather than the total reading. This means that your previous usage on T02 is not included in our billing."

I don't know whether or not the statement about disregarding other registers is typical practice. In the distant past, I have been on a single rate tariff with an E7 meter and the provider would add the readings together. Now on a smart meter, my IHD shows my reading as a total, whereas I can go into my TOU Matrix on the meter itself and see T01, T02, etc.

Which reading should suppliers use when your MPAN is Profile Class 1? Are suppliers free to choose, and if so what happens when switching between suppliers who use different approaches?

MWT

masonic said:

Which reading should suppliers use when your MPAN is Profile Class 1? Are suppliers free to choose, and if so what happens when switching between suppliers who use different approaches?

What happens is that you will have problems, and there is no way to avoid that in advance unfortunately.

At least you have the advantage that it seems your meter profile has been changed so the new supplier should be expecting to use only one reading, but sadly some may not use the correct register, and when you get one of the random meter readers logging a reading, some will use the Total Import rather than the correct T01 register.

QrizB

I agree with @MWT .

As long as the suppliers all continue to use the same basis for billing, you won't have a problem. But we get occasional threads where someone's received an electricity bill for thousands of additional units and it's not uncommon for it to be due to a disused register on a smart meter. Historically this has usually been a result of BGs "free electricity weekends" they used as a sweetener for smart meter adoption in the early days of the rollout, but those were mostly SMETS1 meters. Cases like yours are going to become more common as time passes.

masonic

Hmm, so it definitely is the T01 reading that should be used.

Most of the T02 usage on my meter comes from when I was on the Octopus Go Faster tariff (just a little bit just after the meter was installed from Flexible E7). I had to change from Profile 2 to Profile 1 in order to join the Tracker tariff as that couldn't support Profile 2 (although I think that's now changed). Maybe it would have been better to have stayed on Profile 2, given this confustion...

MWT

I would suggest that whenever you change suppliers you take photos of your meter showing the Total Import, T01 & T02 numbers so you can evidence that position at the point of transfer just in case the new supplier starts using a different register for billing.

Scot_39

Metering is a mess.

Take just the Octopus guide across brands.

https://octopus.energy/blog/how-to-read-your-meter/

It starts off with one of its own original secure brand and makes it nice and clear it wants imp r01 or for multirate imp r01 and imp r02 not total etc.

But then as it runs through others it gets messier.

But it at least also warns of the day night night day register crossover risk that many fall foul of.

I would have thought individual registers were used  - but the billing miss steps above suggest sometimes suppliers getting totals.  Or a mix of t01 and totals when residual r02 etc registers still exist.

All because of arguably weak standards allowing freedom to diverge in their definitions and arguably for smart a continuation of a chaotic multi vendor approach governed by suppliers on a voluntary roll out basis.

Logically if the goal was 100% smart.  May have been far smoother and efficient by mandating fitment of a standard unit even if manufactured by many and DNO employed teams going house to house, street by street, etc. regardless of energy supplier.

Ildhund

@QrizB I can't make a great deal of sense of this fascinating document, but it seems to me that a user with the appropriate permissions (e.g. the current supplier) can send a request (4.1.1) to "Read Instantaneous Import Registers", i.e. not individual ones. The meter itself has no concept of profile class, I think, so an acquiring supplier may get hold of the wrong end of the stick. If Octopus are only getting T01, that is probably because their internal systems won't look any further for a PC01 supply.

I think DCC insist on T01 being the sole import register for a single-rate supply, or the peak register for a multi-rate one. 

[OT re switching read disputes: The entry for 4.6.1 indicates that on switch day, both acquiring and relinquishing suppliers should be able to request the daily read log - for that one day only. Perhaps someone should tell Tomato?] 

Scot_39

They might believe that t01 is peak on multirate but it clearly isnt always the case.

From the other smets1 meter section of Octopus guide

"There is no set rule as to which one is your peak rate reading and which is your offpeak. Your meter might have a sticky label indicating which is which, though."

As to whether it even applies to all smets2 ?

And users have posted here have had to have the order swapped to get their billing correct after switching suppliers for instance.