Octopus meter discrepancy

QrizB

Peter999_2 said:

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?

No, Octopus are only reading R01. This is why Octopus's readings are consistently lower than the meter total.

Peter999_2 said:

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

It is working correctly, just not in the way that most people would expect.

Peter999_2 said:

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.

Your meter is still configured as a dual-rate meter, though. OP's is configured for single-rate.

MWT

QrizB said:

Peter999_2 said:

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?

No, Octopus are only reading R01. This is why Octopus's readings are consistently lower than the meter total.

Peter999_2 said:

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

It is working correctly, just not in the way that most people would expect.

Peter999_2 said:

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.

Your meter is still configured as a dual-rate meter, though. OP's is configured for single-rate.

I went through this with my father-in-laws Octopus account when he switched from 'Go' (2 rate) to Tracker (single rate.

Octopus do not consolidate R1 + R2, when configured as a single-rate, they just use R1 and ignore R2 which will of course always be there.

This means people do need to take care when switching as different suppliers will treat this differently...

Ildhund

There are clearly differences in meter configuration in the cases mentioned here. The various figures given by gjwilko show that R02 is still clocking usage (837 in August, 852 now > ~70Wh/day), so the meter must still be switching tariff for the offpeak period. In other cases, R02 has just been dormant since the meter was configured for single-rate, so the advance on R01 is all that matters for billing. This isn't true for gjwilko's account, so Octopus have to retrieve both R01 and R02 for billing to be accurate. I'm afraid it's not particularly clear which readings Octopus is using.

QrizB

Ildhund said:

There are clearly differences in meter configuration in the cases mentioned here. The various figures given by gjwilko show that R02 is still clocking usage (837 in August, 852 now > ~70Wh/day),

I think you're mistaken.

We've only had one R02 reading shared in this entire thread, of 845. All the other readings are implied, the difference between an Octopus smart meter R01 reading and the manual meter total reading taken in the same day. This could just be due to variations in the time of day.

There's no evidence that R02 is actually changing.

Scot_39

As long as ro2 is no longer changing you should be fine with your current supplier.

However if non zero at so e stage it was installed or configured as multirate - and if you were to change another supplier might presume twin rate from your meter profile class  / its old time codes and r02 magically wakes up comes back into play.  Which your current supplier isn't tracking by the looks of it.

The bills are of course new - old so the increments will be correct once base lines correctly established.

So just keep a note of both and total ahead of any such changes - a digital photo - as time stamped etc - generally works best in any future supplier disputes.

Which is why they have probably suggested a new meter with 0 start points.

The question you might wsnt to ask is why would it have been twin rate before and could you benefit from it or single rate.  Or a mord dynamic smart tariff.

Obvious reasons for r2 non zero  - include older heating or hw heating arrangements, has the heating been changed for instance, old owner on an old dumb EV tariff using block registers etc etc.

Ildhund

QrizB said:
I think you're mistaken.

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.

... the other readings are implied, the difference between an Octopus smart meter R01 reading and the manual meter total reading taken in the same day. This could just be due to variations in the time of day.

You reckon? The average advance of R01 has apparently been 2.1kWh/day ([18679 - 18225]/216), so a time-of-day variation is never going to amount to anything like the 15kWh difference he's showing between August and now. Perhaps we should ask gjwilko to post his current readings for IMPRT, RATE1 and RATE2 just to be sure (I'm guessing that IMPRT is the sum of the two RATEs).

My own E7 meter is rigged for single-rate, so R01 and R02 both advance every day, with the consumption for both tiers shown separately on bills, just charged at the same rate.

CaptainTactful

Ildhund said:

QrizB said:
I think you're mistaken.

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.

... the other readings are implied, the difference between an Octopus smart meter R01 reading and the manual meter total reading taken in the same day. This could just be due to variations in the time of day.

You reckon? The average advance of R01 has apparently been 2.1kWh/day ([18679 - 18225]/216), so a time-of-day variation is never going to amount to anything like the 15kWh difference he's showing between August and now. Perhaps we should ask gjwilko to post his current readings for IMPRT, RATE1 and RATE2 just to be sure (I'm guessing that IMPRT is the sum of the two RATEs).

My own E7 meter is rigged for single-rate, so R01 and R02 both advance every day, with the consumption for both tiers shown separately on bills, just charged at the same rate.

Does that not mean your meter is dual rate surely. Otherwise R2 wouldn't advance..

CaptainTactful

Your tariff is single rate tho

gjwilko

Hi All, sorry for the late reply, I thought this issue was looking solved after my last post, however just seen the comments that followed. 

Sorry to cause confusion @Ildhund - @QrizB is correct in that some of the discrepancies were implied, i.e. the 837 and 852, I must have calculated this incorrectly at the time as it was based on usage per day. I can confirm that currently IMPRT is showing 19655. RT1 is displaying 18810, which is relative to the readings being sent to Octopus by the meter and RT2 is displaying 845, which has obviously not moved since my last post, last week so I believe it must be dormant. I got in touch with Octopus off the back of the help that i received here and explained that the discrepancy between the reading on the meter is because of the two registers and their reply was:

"Smart meters can have multiple registers as they can be programmed for different tariffs (like Economy 7 with day and night rates). I have had confirmation from the team, that the reads you see on your meter is correct as is the reads that are updated on your account. There's no need for a meter replacement as this is completely normal. Your smart meter is working correctly, and we're receiving the correct readings from R1. The readings on your account may appear slightly different from what you see on the meter due to the timing of when readings are updated on our system, but this doesn't affect your billing accuracy."


@MWT - I do worry as I might not want to stay with Octopus forever, as much as I hear good things about them. This is obviously one of my concerns, if i do want to switch, I don't want to be charged for the 845kWh that i haven't used.

@Scot_39 - I'm not sure why it was twin rate in the past, there is an EV charger port on the wall of the house, which looks like it was used previously, however I've never used it and had no idea an EV tariff could use block registers. Something that also came to mind was that the previous owners sold this house as part of a home-exchange with the builders of their new home, so essentially we bought the house from the builders, so I wondered if there was a possibility that they used register 2 for the short period of time that they 'owned' the house, probs a bit far fetched to think that but I wondered.

As much as the help on here has given me some insight into what's happening, i'm still a bit conscious of the fact that IMPRT is displaying 845kW over the actual reading that's being sent by the meter. I just don't want to be stung down the line. I am assuming that R02 can't be removed from the meter based on reply from @MWT.

Thank you all, really appreciate the help.

Ildhund

gjwilko said:

Sorry to cause confusion ...
I can confirm that currently IMPRT is showing 19655. RT1 is displaying 18810, which is relative to the readings being sent to Octopus by the meter and RT2 is displaying 845, which has obviously not moved since my last post, last week so I believe it must be dormant ... I am assuming that R02 can't be removed from the meter ...

Thanks for clearing that up.

Since R02 isn't registering anything at all, Octopus will be billing you correctly by only using the advance on R01. When your Octopus account was opened, you say that there was a 'discrepancy' of 837 kWh. Perhaps this was a derived figure, too, so in fact the account started with readings for both R01 and R02. The (845-837=) 8 kWh isn't worth bothering about. If and when you elect to switch supplier, the new supplier should retrieve both register readings too, so it all comes out in the wash at that stage (bar the 8 kWh). I don't foresee any problem, especially if you can substantiate the readings retrieved by the new supplier by photos of the meter in the morning of switch day showing RT1, RT2 and IMPRT. Octopus should get these readings from the new supplier after they've been validated and be able to compare them with what they were at the start of your contract with them. 

No, tampering with the registers isn't allowed, any more than a used car salesman can (legally) screw back the milometer on a car he's selling.