Octopus meter discrepancy

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Octopus Delays Fixing Smart Meter.

gjwilko

Jumping on this thread as the title relates to a similar problem I am having with Octopus.

Wife and I moved into new house on 9th August 2024. We took manual readings on the moving in day. Electricity reading was 18225. Weeks later after all the drama of moving home, I received my first electricity bill, which showed that the 'smart' reading sent to octopus from the meter on 9th August was 17388. A discrepancy of 837 kWh.

I questioned this at the time with Octopus on several occasions via email and phone and they acknowledged it and said I was being billed correctly for my usage (which I agreed with) and that as long as the meter continues to communicate with them I will be billed correctly going forwards. I was sceptical of this and conscious of the fact that if it stopped communicating, we could be in trouble as the numbers were so far out. Anyhow, going back to when we moved in, I soon realised that our gas meter was not communicating with Octopus so I was having to send them manual readings, however the number displayed on the meter and what was showing on the account were aligned. 

I soon complained to Octopus about the gas meter not communicating and after a compensation payment of £50 and 3/4 weeks later had an engineer come out to get it back communicating early December. Whilst the engineer was here I advised him of the issue with our electricity meter displaying a higher number than the number it was sending to Octopus. He said I should get on to Octopus for a replacement meter to start from 0. He did advise that when an engineer comes they will take the reading on the meter, so to ensure that I have proof of my usage from my online account. 

I put this request in in January and have just been going round and round in circles with customer support agents via email and telephone. I've formally complained and they just keep advising there is no engineers in the area at the moment and wait until there is one. Surely this is not good enough? My latest manual reading shows 18679, yet in the app the latest reading sent was 19531 so that's a discrepancy of 852 kWh, which is relative to the 837 kWh discrepancy in August when we moved in. Has anyone ever had a similar issue or can offer any advice? I am so anxious that at some point the connection drops and will be requested to provide a manual reading, which is not relative to my usage since moving in. Thanks in advance.

gjwilko

Apologies, on post above I meant the latest manual reading is 19531 and the reading being communicated by the 'smart' meter is 18679.

QrizB

gjwilko said:

Apologies, on post above I meant the latest manual reading is 19531 and the reading being communicated by the 'smart' meter is 18679.

What model of smart meter do you have?

There might be a second register eg. R02 that was previously used, with Octopus billing you on eg. R01 but you reporting the total reading of R01+R02.

gjwilko

QrizB said:

gjwilko said:

Apologies, on post above I meant the latest manual reading is 19531 and the reading being communicated by the 'smart' meter is 18679.

What model of smart meter do you have?

There might be a second register eg. R02 that was previously used, with Octopus billing you on eg. R01 but you reporting the total reading of R01+R02.

Sorry for the late reply @QrizB - the model of smart meter is EDMI ES-10B. 

I see, so how could I find out whether there is a second register for it?

Thanks in advance.

QrizB

gjwilko said:

QrizB said:

gjwilko said:

Apologies, on post above I meant the latest manual reading is 19531 and the reading being communicated by the 'smart' meter is 18679.

What model of smart meter do you have?

There might be a second register eg. R02 that was previously used, with Octopus billing you on eg. R01 but you reporting the total reading of R01+R02.

Sorry for the late reply @QrizB - the model of smart meter is EDMI ES-10B. 
I see, so how could I find out whether there is a second register for it?
Thanks in advance.

The manual for your meter is here:

https://www.smartme.co.uk/documents/EDMI_ES10B_Smart_Meter_Manual.pdf

There's a short video here that tells you how to check the individual registers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNw-3mOEN-0

Take a look and let us know what you find!

Ildhund

There's a pretty clear user manual here: ES-10B 4 Terminal Single Phase Electricity Meter. §4.8 shows what the two registers contain, once you've worked out how to navigate through the menus.

gjwilko

gjwilko said:

QrizB said:

gjwilko said:

Apologies, on post above I meant the latest manual reading is 19531 and the reading being communicated by the 'smart' meter is 18679.

What model of smart meter do you have?

There might be a second register eg. R02 that was previously used, with Octopus billing you on eg. R01 but you reporting the total reading of R01+R02.

Sorry for the late reply @QrizB - the model of smart meter is EDMI ES-10B. 

I see, so how could I find out whether there is a second register for it?

Thanks in advance.

Hi again @QrizB, you are 100% correct and something that has confused me for over 6 months finally makes sense so thank you very much. I have googled the instructions to check for a second register and after a few presses of the buttons on the meter, R01 stating 18765 and R02 stating 845, which now makes sense. So I am assuming that the previous homeowner used to have a peak and off peak tariff maybe? 

QrizB

Yes, someting like that.

Now you need to mak sure your supplier understands that the meter total is made up of R01 (which they're reading via the smart meter system) plus R02 (which, it seems, they're not). Octopus always used to be very good with this sort of thing, hopefully they still are.

gjwilko

QrizB said:

Yes, someting like that.

Now you need to mak sure your supplier understands that the meter total is made up of R01 (which they're reading via the smart meter system) plus R02 (which, it seems, they're not). Octopus always used to be very good with this sort of thing, hopefully they still are.

Will do, thank you for your advice and help, much appreciated.

Peter999_2

I might be being daft, but doesn't it sound like they are actually reading it correctly?   They must be reading R02 as well as R01 and that is why you thought the reading was wrong?

Doesn't it mean that everything is working correctly and it's fine?

I have always had R01 and R02 as the guy I bought my house from used Economy 7 (He was on a combi boiler and I never really understood why he stayed on Economy 7 as the day rate was quite high).

When I moved from EON to Octopus, Octopus was a single rate and I can see that they have combined R01 & R02 without me saying anything or them telling me they have done that.