Octopus Energy lost our smart meter data for 17 months – now wants to bill on estimates

Reed_Richards

QrizB said:

Cadwallon said:

The issue now is 13 months of Octopus's missing record data are saved inside our meter ...

Playing devil's advocate here, you don't actually know that. It's possible that the meter has 13 months of import data and 3 months of export data stored, but until someone looks, you don't know if the meter has been recording any of it.

But you may be able to find out.  If you have one of the little in-home devices that Octopus supplies you can ask that what it knows.  It won't store any data itself, it will interrogate your meter over its LAN connection.  If it can manage to tell you how much electricity you used each month for the past 13 months then I think it's very likely that all the data, for every half hour, is still stored on your meter.

Having said that, my meter stopped reporting data in July.  In October the problem was fixed by replacing the comms hub; I kept the same meter.  But when installing the comms hub the engineer "fooled" the system into believing it was a new installation by resetting the records of the meter installation date to the date of the fix.  Probably as a result, it was not possible to recover the missing data.           

Chrysalis

The assumption Octopus would know early on is just that, not an assurance.

There is people who have deliberately not reported broken meters for over a year, when they were getting favourable estimated bills, it may seem obvious, but the supplier doesnt actually just pickup on lack of readings quickly.

The lack of 30 minute data would be a clear indicator, as well as if you were doing it checking things like live usage, and recent measurements in the app or on the website.  

This to me remains unclear.

brianposter

The OP should provide their own estimate to Octopus before going to the Ombudsman and before the meter is removed. Octopus might accept it.

matt_drummer

brianposter said:

The OP should provide their own estimate to Octopus before going to the Ombudsman and before the meter is removed. Octopus might accept it.

Do you fully understand their setup?

They are buying and selling electricity.

They want to be paid for electricity they have no usable proof that they actually exported.

They have no history as the meter stopped sending data shortly after installation of the solar panels and storage batteries.

This isn't just about estimating consumption.

They also want to be billed at a rate that is not the SVR even though the terms of their tariff say they would be if half hourly data was not received.

They knew something had gone wrong when it first happened but chose to ignore it as the money was working out acceptably to them.

Only when the financial situation changed to something they didn't like have they started showing any interest in the problem.

They expect their supplier to be interested when they're not.

Their supplier has indicated an issue as the OP admits but they chose to ignore it.

Cadwallon

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. As explained, we are where we are. Our bills and Octopus's ongoing estimates of our annual usage were in line with our expectations, so they caused us no alarm. Little did we realise Octopus had switched from using live data to using estimated data. Our problem is to find a way of persuading Octopus not to destroy the live data, known to be stored in our smart meter, that they can use to check our bills against the tariff we are on (or cross-check the equivalent data exported from our system) -- taking into account the credit we have earned from solar generation. We feel it would be unfair for Octopus to generate new bills based on headline numbers and an unfavourable tariff that does not take into account our earnings from solar generation, which should more or less balance our usage. We only have a short time to persuade Octopus to change course, and we will look elsewhere for the solution we urgently need.

matt_drummer

If you showed a bill, or even better, a selection of bills including when it first went wrong you would get some useful help, especially if the bills give no indication of a problem.

You keep referencing your system, I have GivEnergy too, you can't use it for billing and the data will never be identical to that actually recorded by your electricity meter.

You have to check the bills and there will be a page for every day your bill covers showing your half hourly import and export data.

If you don't get it there's a problem.

You said you checked your bills in the early days and then stopped, why?

Qyburn

The total amount of export can be read direct from the smart meter. Octopus was happily crediting us for export on their fixed rate, even while they weren't getting data from the meter.

matt_drummer

The OP says that gas readings have been received by Octopus with no trouble until the engineer visit earlier this month.

Why would gas readings be available but not electricity, does it suggest a meter problem which is why Octopus cannot extract data from it?

Bendo

Chrysalis said:

The assumption Octopus would know early on is just that, not an assurance.

There is people who have deliberately not reported broken meters for over a year, when they were getting favourable estimated bills, it may seem obvious, but the supplier doesnt actually just pickup on lack of readings quickly.

If the supplier was competent,  then they would have built their systems to alert when a meter stops getting data that is expected, doubly so when it is a smart tariff.  Of course the supplier had the knowledge they weren't getting the data. That they did nothing with that knowledge is a large part of the problem. 

It's similar (but more clear cut) then the apparent surprise when gas meter batteries run out, despite alerting for low batteries being in the SMETS spec.

It comes down to half arsed implementations.

Scot_39

The supplier did do something with that knowledge.

It modified its billing and charge rates exactly as per the contract the OP agreed to and entered as a willing party.

And sent statements accordingly - which the OP admits changed format - but paid anyway - no doubt based on estimates (for import anyway).

As not once has the OP said provided manual readings instead - again a condition of tge contract (2.3.1 every 90 days) once on variable tariff terms - when had a non reporting meter -for now best part of 18m.