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Why is the tariff rate on my IHD incorrect?

  • 7 October 2018
  • 23 replies
  • 2150 views
M
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The standing charge and kWh rate on my Chameleon IHD are higher than my account tariffs . My Account tariffs are correct, any way to correct the IHD display? Thanks.
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Best answer by NinjaGeek 8 October 2018, 16:16

Updated on 04/05/2020

 

@MickG


Two possibilities here:

1) The prices are correct but they're including the 5% VAT not shown online.

2) The tariff that's been loaded onto the smart meters/IHD is wrong.

To work out which, calculate the prices with 5% added and if the prices showing are still out, message OVO so they can update the tariff loaded onto the smart meter through webcat via the Help Centre

There's a similar topic for wrong prices showing on the Pipet IHD here.

Credit goes to @Darran_OVO

 

 

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23 replies

NinjaGeek
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Hi @MickG

Have you tried restarting the smart meter display by turning it off and on again to see if this will help re-sync.

Thanks
Matt
Renewable energy + EV enthusiast
M
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Hi Matt, thanks for your response. I turned off the smart metre for 30 mins but unfortunately the readings are still incorrect. They are as follows; actual standing charge is 23.50p per day per fuel. The IHD display reads 28.77p .Actual electric charge = 11.93 kWh, display = 14.53. Actual gas change = 2.62 kWh, display = 3.19.
NinjaGeek
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@MickG

Ah dude, I am sorry that didn't work. In my profession that normally works when I ask customers to do that haha. Ok, the best thing to do would be to speak with OVO amazing customer service. I would advice you give them a call on 0330 303 5063
Renewable energy + EV enthusiast
NinjaGeek
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Updated on 04/05/2020

 

@MickG


Two possibilities here:

1) The prices are correct but they're including the 5% VAT not shown online.

2) The tariff that's been loaded onto the smart meters/IHD is wrong.

To work out which, calculate the prices with 5% added and if the prices showing are still out, message OVO so they can update the tariff loaded onto the smart meter through webcat via the Help Centre

There's a similar topic for wrong prices showing on the Pipet IHD here.

Credit goes to @Darran_OVO

 

 

Renewable energy + EV enthusiast
M
Rank
Hi, just a quick update for other members future reference. After following the link in the previous post I sent a DM to the ovo Facebook site which was picked up within an hour by Emma and my problem has now been resolved.
Great, only problem is that because I contacted ovo to resolve the issue I think that I have now lost my duel fuel discount for this quarter according to the new rules regarding the payment of the discount.
I think this very unfair unless the powers that be agree that I was reporting a fault in which case my discount remains on my account.
Mw2870
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only problem is that because I contacted ovo to resolve the issue I think that I have now lost my duel fuel discount for this quarter according to the new rules regarding the payment of the discount. I think this very unfair unless the powers that be agree that I was reporting a fault in which case my discount remains on my account.

@MickG there was no credible way for you to "self-serve" this problem via the website, so I don't think you should lose your discount. Check your next statement and contest it if you do.
T
Rank
I had smart meters installed 6-8 weeks ago. From day 1 my IHD has shown an incorrect gas cost for previous days. I thought it may have corrected itself over the course of the first few weeks but it hasn't - is there a way to get this data to show correctly?

Gas usage for 'today' shows correctly and shows the kWh usage and correct cost data. Navigating through the historical data to show what I used yesterday / last week / last month and the kWh usage seems right, but the cost is wildly out. It's basically showing a cost of £1 per kWh, so if I used 200 kWh last week, it shows a cost of £200.

The data for electricity looks like it's showing correctly.
M
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Hi, have just had new Gen2 Smart Meters installed. Been monitoring the display (as one is expected to do). Am alarmed at cost of usage, in only a 5 hour period with very little electrical turned on, mostly things on standby, my display shows a cost of £2.07 for a 1.54 kWh use (i.e. £1.344p per kWh) I calculated an expenditure of 20p. So based upon this my next Annual Electrical Bill would be in the region of £3000!!!!!!

Gas appears to be OK. That shows correct. Has anyone else had this problem. Cant find anywhere on Display unit where it shows tariff per energy. Have tried phoning but after a 45 minute on background music, I passed the 6pm cut off.

I hope that the display unit is not reflective of the tariff shown at Accounts, if it is HELP.
R
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my IHD seems to be using a different rate than I am being charged, particularly for gas. My combined usage per day (according to IHD) has doubled to £9/10 day - much higher than same time last year when my tariff is still fixed. Conversely, my actual bills seem to be ok. How do I change the rate used by the IHD?
Transparent
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Hi @TonyY Good point!

I don't (yet) have smart meters, but what you've reported doesn't surprise me. Almost the last thing which gets done in the process of Smart Meter implementation is for the Supplier to send tariff data to the meter(s).

Prior to that, the IHD will pick up whatever numbers happen to be held in those memory locations within the meter(s). I would've hoped that these locations might have held reasonable default values. But perhaps that would be regarded as "worse" by some users. After all, you can at least see that the initial weeks of readings are erroneous.

This won't affect your bills at all. They are calculated separately based on sequential readings obtained from your meter(s). The necessary corrections for things like calorific-value of gas are all computed internally by OVO, and those algorithms are subject to scrutiny by Ofgem.
Save energy... recycle electrons!
T
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Thanks for the comment @Transparent. Like you I am not surprised it's not displaying correctly to start with, but eight weeks on I'd have thought it would have sorted itself by now.

I know that my actual charges will be based on meter readings submitted to OVO so I'm not concerned about the charges per se but one of the reasons I opted to switch to smart meters was the ability to accurately track usage and cost day to day, week to week. Right now, I can't do that with my IHD as the historical info is wildly inaccurate. (I can't even track my usage through MyOVO - see post here.)

I don't know if the tariff issue I have is because of a problem with my meters or whether this is just part of the normal transition period, and as you say is still waiting for the update to the tariff info in the meter. However, the guidance in after your smart meter installation suggests it should work 'right away' so I'm thinking it might not be normal and something's gone wrong somewhere:

[h5]My smart meter has been installed. Now what? [/h5]
Your smart meter should start working right away, so you don’t need to do anything. It’ll start clocking your energy and sending us meter readings regularly.
You can simply enjoy using your In-Home Display (IHD) to keep an eye on your daily, weekly or monthly energy use. And the cost, kilowatt hours and carbon emissions.



If it is normal to have to wait this long after installation, the question is how much longer will I have to wait for my tariff info to display correctly? And it is is the norm, the guidance above should be updated by OVO to correct the 'it should work right away' to something like 'you will likely have to wait 8+ weeks for it to work'.


I've got to admit, two months in to my smart meter experience and I'm not very impressed so far. I was looking forward to being able to track usage and cost more accurately but given I can't do this yet, it's not been a great user experience.
B
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I've recently joined OVO and yesterday had a smart meter fitted. While playing around with the IHD i've noticed a few discrepancies. For example my contract states i pay 27.40/day standing charge (dual fuel). The IHD states 28.77/day standing charge per fuel! Also my contract states GAS 3.10p P/kWh. The IHD states 3.25p P/kWh! The electricity cost on my contract states 13.03p p/kWh. The IHD states 13.68p!
Also does the total charge (£31.19) mean the present billing period? Not from the date the smart meter was installed?
Nancy_OVO
Userlevel 6
Hi @Bourney,

The difference in price you've mentioned is VAT, which is 5% for energy. Your contract should state that those prices aren't inclusive of VAT. The charges on your IHD do include this.

If you could post a photo of where you can see 'total charge', we'll be able to let you know whether this is the bill period or since installation.

Cheers
Your guiding light(bulb)
S
Rank

Hi my electricity traiff is showing correctly. However, my gas tariff is out by a factor of 10.

My gas tariff (incl 5% Vat) is actually (according to my bill)

  • 23.31p/day standing charge
  • 2.13p/day usage charge

However the IHD is showing figures 10 times lower at:

  • 2.33p/day standing charge
  • 0.21p/day usage chharge
Blastoise186
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Hi there @steveaduk ,

It sounds like your IHD has somehow gotten out of sync with what it should be saying. If you have a chat with the support team, they should be able to try forcing it to pull down the correct details again.

It sounds like this topic was also related as well.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Tim_OVO
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I’ve moved your question over to this topic, @steveaduk 

 

As the bug blaster @Blastoise186 points out, that IHD has the incorrect tariff on it, needing our Support team.

 

I’ve been advised this can often happen after install. Was the meter recently fitted? 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
S
Rank

Hi @Tim_OVO - the meter was fitted ages ago (maybe April?), but stopped sending any data for ages (either meter readings, or data to the IHD). I reported it, and seems like its working again now,, apart from the gas tariff being only 10% of what it should be.

Blastoise186
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My personal theory is that when new meters and/or IHDs are first installed, they have to start by assuming a blank slate and not show any tariff data until it’s downloaded for the first time once the meter starts to communicate with the supplier. Until then, it’ll either show nothing at all or something completely random that doesn’t make sense.

In theory I would imagine that once the Communications Hub on the electricity meter has pulled down the tariff details, it should be able to broadcast that out to the rest of the HAN (mainly gas meter and IHD) once they next check in. And this then set up the correct details so that you don’t get bad info.

If it doesn’t sync, that prevents it from pulling the numbers down.

Mind you @steveaduk what I do find really curious is the fact that your tariff info is out by one decimal place, which I find really weird. Not sure if it’s just a coincidence, but could human error play a part here?

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Blastoise186
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Either way, having the support team force a resync should get your IHD to pull down the right details. If you give the support team a call right this way, they can probably trigger a SMETS Command while you’re on the phone.

Do let us know how you get on too. :)

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
TomThumb
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@steveaduk  Very recently I had the exact same view of my IHD only showing 10% of actual costs for my gas usage, the info requested by the smart team at ovo resulted in the correct data being pushed back to my equipment. 
 

If not supplied to ovo already, this maybe helpful in speeding things up for you.

Tom...

 

The request from ovo per there email. (Along with your account #, name, etc)

 

 

Can you please supply a photo of the IHD and the usage that you can see.


Could you also answer the following questions. We apologise if you have answered these before.

- Please confirm the GUID on the underside of the IHD. This normally starts "0C-A2-F4"

- Please let us know if the Wifi symbol is showing on the top left corner of the IHD screen. If so - is this flashing or solid?

- Please confirm if the correct time is showing in the top right corner of the IHD screen.

- Please estimate the distance between the electricity meter and the IHD. Are there any large metal objects or obstructions between them?


Once we have received this we can look into this further for you.

 

3 meters: Smart Gas & Smart Elec / Traditional Gas meter
Blastoise186
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Ooh, nice one @TomThumb ! That’s going to come in especially useful if anyone else needs to put in a similar request.

Meanwhile, I’ve just had an email from OVO literally 20 seconds ago, telling me my smart meter is about to go live again. (Yay!) :)

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
TomThumb
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Userlevel 5

@Blastoise186 My energy account(s) over the years have never been plain sailing, but never so much as from the day I made the switch to smart meters.

 

Tom...

3 meters: Smart Gas & Smart Elec / Traditional Gas meter
Blastoise186
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That’s understandable. But you do get the honour of me saying that you’re basically a brilliant platform destroyer! An account with a setup like yours is a perfect example of an edge case that hardly anyone thinks of, so it’s not surprising if that causes most billing systems to implode. You never think it’s possible until you discover (to your horror!) that someone comes along and completely smashes your system to pieces.

However, I believe the one OVO currently uses is custom built in-house by Kaluza, so I don’t believe there’s any kind of middleman that has to be convinced to fix bugs like these.

I guess it will probably also help to include supporting other unique edge cases too. One other combination that’d likely break it might be a single account with:

  • One non-smart electricity meter
  • One smart electricity meter running in  “normal single-rate mode”
  • One three-phase/Time of Use/Economy 7 electricity meter
  • One non-smart gas meter
  • One smart gas meter

In a way, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea if the platform was enhanced to cater for that kind of completely extreme edge case! You never know if there’s someone who actually has that...

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!

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