High electricity usage since renovation

Well of course whatever was done/changed during the “complete renovation” could have made big differences to your energy use.
Depending just what has been done it could be like moving home to a different property.

Renovations often means bigger (better?) fittings and appliances, which may use more power that the old stuff did.

I’m afraid that we don’t know just what you have had changed so can’t comment much.
However you will need to consider everything that is/may be different now.

New appliances perhaps? New built in Oven(s), or fridge/freezer, or dishwasher, etc
New heatings system? New ……?

Something as simple seeming as fitting spotlights in the kitchen can make a big difference to the electricity used, and a new electric oven with a higher wattage would obviously do so.
Even fitting one of those popular instant boiling water taps is going to use more electricity to boil the incoming water, they can be rated at up to 3kW and some types even higher, and you are likely to use it much more often than you would boil a kettle.

Hey @frogeyesprite,

Is this usage spikes you’re seeing on your in home display or smart meter readings on the online account? You’ll be billed based on meter readings from the smart meter itself. Are you able to send a screenshot of the meter readings on your online account? There are lots of factors that can cause spikes in usage or billing. The following topics might have some helpful advice:

 

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-account-140/questions-about-your-energy-use-check-out-our-handy-faq-18146

• I think my meter is clocking too fast - How can I test if my high usage is due to a faulty meter?

• Identifying Smart Meter Issues on your online account or OVO app Tutorial

Hi @frogeyesprite , our boiler is a Worcester Bosch as well but it doesn’t use much electricity at all. 
The electrical use will be very low for the control system (on some you can see the electrical use reported) but the rest will depend on your pump used to push water around the system. There will also be a diverter valve for switching between heating and hot water. 
Once it’s reporting fully, your smart meter can give further clues which will depend on the timing and kw level of those spikes.

Hi, 

We do have more appliances, however, they’re all energy efficient and don’t correspond with the large spikes in the readings. 
 

our in home display has finally been activated and I can now see that our background usage, with a laptop charging, tall fridge, counter height freezer, kitchen spots (x9), boiler, plus a few other small devices probably plugged in, we have a reading of between 6p and 8p per hour. With the dishwasher and washing machine on, it went up to 26-28p per hour. 
 

however, the display randomly shoots up to 86-88p per hour and this was when the dishwasher and washing machine were off. 
I also tested running the shower and that doesn’t appear to be the cause. 

There are no other major appliances or devices turned on, which would explain the sudden surge, so I’m starting to suspect a problem with our smart meter. 
 

Are there ever any such issues? 
 

It's usually more useful when gauging power use to see what the Watts (kW) usage is rather then the £'s/pence.

Remember that the the freezer, fridge, and boiler are not using electricity all the time, they switch on and off again as needed which can give random looking spikes in real time usage.

For example:
My standard background use is around 32 Watts, (it’s too low to even register a money figure, my IHD shows £0.00 when it’s only that low background).
My fridge/freezer uses 80 Watts when running.
So when my fridge/freezer kicks in then while it's running my usage is 32+80=112W
3.5 times higher than my standard background use.

It's a similar story with my gas Central Heating, the circulating pump for that uses 95 Watts, so again when the thermostat tells the boiler to fire up and the pump runs then the usage spikes up while the pump is running.

And if the FF and the CH pump both happen to be running at the same time  32+80+95=207W,
an even bigger spike of about 6.5 times my ‘quiet’ background .

When you bear that in mind, and add in that you have a seperate fridge and freezer, then its not difficult to see how a 6-8p ‘quiet’ background could jump to 86-88p for a while if your tall freezer, counter sized fridge, and boiler pump all happen to be running at the same time.

PS. Washing machines do the same kind of  thing. They don’t use full power all the time that they are running but only while they are actually heating the water.
Turning the drum does take power, but nowhere near as much as heating the water does.
Even electric ovens and hobs also stop using power when they reach temperature, you can often hear them click on and off as they cool then heat up again. and there’s usually an indicator light.
Althought those things aren’t on constantly like fridges, freezers, and boilers tend to be.

Just to add to ​@Nukecad’s helpful remarks, I’d point out that the meter is continuously monitoring the passage of electricity through it. Its measurement of the power draw (in kW) is instantaneous, taken from the current flow and voltage. The IHD will only receive a ‘snapshot’ every ten seconds, so it’s pure chance whether this will be a much higher or lower figure than average. Switching a light on might cause a high current flow for a few milliseconds, which would produce a ‘spike’ if the snapshot was taken just then for transmission to the IHD. 

If your data are being transmitted successfully to OVO each night, you’ll get a much better idea of when electricity is being used. Knowing what appliances are running when will help you make sense of the usage figures you see on the Usage charts and tables in your online account.  

I’d concur with Nukecad that 2-4p/hr is a not inconsiderable background usage, equating to something like 80-160W. You’ll again get a better idea of what your true background usage is from the usage charts: see what the household is consuming between the times when everyone has gone to sleep at night and when they wake up again. If you’ve been conscientious about switching stuff off before going to bed, what you see in the wee small hours is a good measure of the essential, always-on consumption. (Of course, this doesn’t apply for those on tariffs like Economy 7, where heating equipment and, perhaps, washing machines and dishwashers are purposely run during the night when the price is lower.)  

Last, the online account includes an Energy Insights section, which uses the distinguishing features of each type of appliance’s consumption pattern to make an educated guess at what each type is using. Here is a recent week from my own account:
  

The electric shower is the greediest item, followed by my laptop, TV and radio. The third biggest consumer is the ‘always on’ stuff like my bedside clock-radio, my Internet modem/router, the IHD and the smoke and fire alarms. Have a look at yours - it will be very different, but it might have some surprises for you.

Hi, 

many thanks for the comments and suggestions. 
 

when I say the in home display shows a spike in usage, it’s for a period of time, not just for a few seconds. For example, this morning at one point it went up to 3.6kw and there was nothing to explain that - the heating was not firing, no major appliances were drawing power (washing machine, dishwasher, oven, hob, etc.). 
I can’t confirm what the fridge or freezer were doing, but I doubt even both together would draw that amount of energy. 
 

I mostly work at home, so I have a good idea what’s running at any given time and it’s just me from 8.15am-3.30pm, so there’s nobody else drawing power. 
 

For info., my background reading for electricity is approx 67W with laptop disconnected (not charging) and monitor switched off, so this is just the stuff ticking over and very few devices on standby. 
this value is not a concern to me. 

I’m going to need to take an analytical approach and work by a process of elimination. 
 

A step by step approach should certainly help. 
One thing on the IHD is that it only updates every 12 seconds or so. It can also sometimes suffer from a display ‘freeze’ which might suggest a power draw when it was a very short blip. 
The best point to check is at the meter itself and while there, isolating circuits to see which might be drawing more power than expected. Once the circuit is identified, you can move on to whatever is connected to that circuit. 

One common appliance drawing that sort of power is a water immersion heater. Is it possible that there’s one in your hot water tank that’s turning on automatically when its thermostat tells it to?

I do feel like there’s something odd happening here. 
 

I was getting a reading of 3.26kw for a sustained period of time earlier, yet the heating and hot water were off, oven and hob were not running, dishwasher and washing machine were off - nothing major was drawing power. 
 

Will need to spend some time ruling things out. 
 

no immersion heater by the way. 
 

I also checked on the smart meter itself, but it only gives the absolute reading, rather than current usage - I couldn’t find a way to get that.

Yes, but you should be able to see a significant difference in the reading when something is drawing that level of power. 
As mentioned earlier, isolating circuits (switch off at the consumer unit ) at the appropriate time would help to identify which circuit is causing the additional energy. 
There are other methods, but those would involve an electrician measuring/tracing each circuit.