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

I wish I could explain this one, but I’m stumped unfortunately. I’ll see if our secret weapon @Transparent can figure this puzzle out.

This forum is volunteer led and pretty much everyone except Tim and Jess are volunteers. It wouldn’t be fair to say that you should implicitly trust us by default as that would get you into some really tight spots if you’re not careful. But I like to think that we can try to help figure these issues out without causing too much hassle or cost.

last read for today suggests 11.3Kwh since 08:16… includes a correction for earlier when I missed a read

Yeah it can be a real puzzler - and unfortunately we can’t say for certain what might be causing the fluctuations in usage you’ve seen, @fatbloke88 .

The best advice would be to carry out as many checks as possible before determining that a Meter Accuracy Test is required. We can’t guarantee the results of the test until it’s been completed so it’s always best to rule out other possible causes first.

Have you carried out a circuit check yet? - This could really help isolate the usage down to a particular circuit or appliance which we’d then encourage you to get checked by an electrician. Let us know if this does explain things, we’d love to hear when you get to the bottom of things! 

Hi @fatbloke88 - I’ve read through all of the discussions above, and I think we don’t have enough information to resolve this issue.

The nature of the excessive-usage is sporadic. We can’t detect any pattern from what you’ve observed.

I think the sequence of testing each ‘circuit’ individually, as @Jess_OVO suggested above is the best advice thus far.

Unlike you, I have a grid-connected device (a PowerVault Storage Battery) which produces usage graphs based on intervals of about 1 minute. This enables me to decipher the normal pattern of usage which is typical of my house:

The freezer and (two) fridges form part of the ‘base-load’ which hovers around 800w.

But the high-power devices such as kettle, microwave and power-tools clearly stand out above this line.

This is quite different from the level of detail which can be obtained from a Smart Meter, which collates half-hour averages, or an IHD which displays 3 or 4 snapshots per minute.

To gain an overview of what’s happening in a house such as yours, we need a mains ‘meter’ which acts as a data-logger. These monitors exist and can be fitted into any or all of the circuits fed by a Consumer Unit.

Here’s such a Smart Monitor which I’ve had fitted into a new circuit that charges my EV

In this case I still have to push the button and manually read the display. But it presents me with a wide array of data: Voltage, Current, Active Power, reactive power, power factor, frequency, Total Energy kWh etc.

There are also similar meters which use a MODBUS data-network. This is an ‘industry standard’ 2-wire network which allows multiple meters to be connected to a Modbus TCP adaptor, and thence to a computer or cloud-based storage.

Such a Modbus meter can cost between £25-50 (plus installation) and can monitor over 40 electrical parameters at pre-configured intervals as small as one second.

The problem is that they can create vast volumes of data which then needs storing and analysing!

Over the past six months of dialogue with OVO I’ve realised that they know very little about the normal patterns of energy usage in our homes!

This seems odd when they are increasingly giving us advice on how to save energy.

It’s even more of a knowledge-deficit when you consider that their Kaluza division is developing the Flex Platform to remotely control high-power devices in the home, and a new Billing System to provide flexible Time Of Use tariffs.

Those algorithms really need to take into account the ‘normal’ pattern of usage. And that means OVO must somehow create a knowledge-base of what electricity usage looks like now - a reference-point from which later changes can be detected.

In your case such a knowledge base would enable us to detect the abnormal usage which now seems to be afflicting your system.

Indeed, in future the Billing System could in theory notice the anomalous pattern change and send an alert to you and an OVO technical support engineer to tell you that something is going wrong!

To me, as a fellow consumer, that’s when I start believing that the Smart Meter has progressed to the first rung on the ladder of ‘being smart’!

Whilst I may not immediately be able to diagnose what problem is affecting your site, there are two ‘solutions’ which OVO needs to explore. I’m putting them here so that the Forum Moderators can ask the relevant in-house staff to read this post!

1: To the Smart Meter Team: Is it possible to write a piece of diagnostic code to be downloaded into a customer’s Smart Meter which could log current-peaks over a period of 30-mins and deliver these back to OVO ?

Thus, instead of requiring a MAT test, the first stage would be to ask the meter itself to check actual usage every 30-secs, utilising one of the spare tariff-slots which currently do nothing! Those 60 readings can then be compared to both the daily costs which you are being charged, and a knowledge-base of ‘normal usage’.

It’s not ideal because it uses the same meter, which may be faulty of course. But it’s a huge step in the right direction.

2: To the Smart Home Team: amongst the 500-odd trial sites which you’re currently running, find some customers who would be prepared to have some Modbus meters fitted.

This would allow you to build the knowledge-base which will be required to generate smart algorithms in the Billing System and Flex so that you can start to deliver the tools us customers require to save energy, provide fault-analysis and help us combat Climate Change.

Over to you @Jess_OVO and @Tim_OVO !

Yes to both of those @fatbloke88.

I’m a participant on the current PowerVault Battery Trial which OVO are running. But the more I became aware of what they want to deliver, I realised that they  don’t have enough incoming data to understand the effect of operating that battery.

The fact that I’ve just bought an EV makes matters worse. Whilst Flex will try to manage the PowerVault unit, it will be operating blind to the influence of my decisions on charging.

And that’s why I’ve started looking further into how the required algorithms can be created… without requiring every customer to use Modbus Metering of course!

It’s a bonus that the same techniques would also lend themselves to resolving incorrect meter readings for sites like yours. But that makes it all the more important for OVO to start collecting this data of course.

The information we don’t have @fatbloke88 is what configuration gets put into your SMETS1 meter when it’s upgraded to SMETS2 software.

If the anomalies were solely related to price, then we might reasonably suppose that the memory locations where your tariff data has been stored have defaulted to an arbitrary default value.

Once your site gets passed across to OVO by the Data Communications Company (DCC), the correct tariff would get sent across by their Billing System.

In your case there seems to have arisen a sudden jump in the consumption itself (measured in kWh). We could conjecture that there might be a memory location where the SMETS firmware holds a ‘calibration factor’. But I’ve not heard of such a system before and don’t know if Secure’s meters operate like this.

Whilst I remain intrigued from a technical viewpoint, I don’t believe there’s any need to be concerned that you will end up paying for such an error.

At this stage you haven’t even received a bill which covers the days on which the suspicious readings have occurred.

Nor can the Billing System start sending you invoices or warnings to ‘increase your Direct Debit’ because it can take weeks for a meter to be tested on the upgraded software and then passed across to OVO by DCC.

So panic not!

If you want to cover all eventualities you could email hello@ovoenergy.com and state something like:

Further to our telephone conversation of Nth July, I appreciate that my early Smart Meter is in the process of being migrated to the National Network.

The meter continues to provide consumption readings which are significantly greater that have occurred during the previous months on my contract with you. I accept that this process includes a number of technical steps and that testing may yet take some time.

I am reassured by your assertion that my account will be credited for the erroneous readings during this time.

That basically put in writing a date/time-stamped copy of what you were told on the phone. If any of it is incorrect, then OVO has the opportunity to refute that.

In any case, the email stays ‘on your file’.

Under those circumstances, even if you do get emails asking you for extra payments, you can safely ignore them. There is no possibility of you being threatened with legal action because the High Court (Small claims division) would be unlikely to let it proceed to a hearing. As soon as you produce a copy of the email, the case would have to be withdrawn.

I’ve been with OVO for awhile but ever since I had smart meter fitted my bills have been more than it should be 

I live in a one bedroom warden controlled bungalow , I have no cooker or washing machine as I live 2 doors from my sister and I go there for meals and to do washing , I’m out of bungalow from 8am till 6pm , don’t have a swimming pool or a hot tub but my bills are >  £70 / month but my sister who lives in an exact replica of bungalow and does cooking and has washing machine and stays in all the time , her bills are about £45/ month . I have phoned a few times to say my smart meter is faulty but they just fob me off . I’m now sick of the bills 

so I tried to join another supplier today but he said they couldn’t transfer me because “ my meter is locked ? And I need to ask OVO to unlock it “ how do I do this as I just want to leave 

I am paying £20 /more than my sister who uses lots more energy than I am 

Good shout this ^^^

@Atherz thanks for posting, it’s an interesting one this with such a close comparison possible between properties of a similar type. As Blastoise186 mentioned, we’ll be happy to help you drill down into these costs, and also with any advice on switching. Your meter being ‘locked’ has me scratching my head, but I’ll get to that. 

Would you be able to read the main article of this topic that Jess posted - I’ve moved your topic thread and combined it with the one Jess made as it’s very relevant here? She’s just recently posted it, and this outlines various things you can do at home to work out why you’ve got higher then expected costs. 

Some info from you would help us to help you: 

Can you also confirm via your online account if your Direct Debit is > £70, or if that is the rough amount of your charges? 

Can you let us know what smart meter you have, or even better: send us a picture? Do you know if this smart meter is communicating with OVO remotely? You’ll have meter readings and usage info in your online account if you do have communicating smart meters.

We’re on hand to help as best we can. I’d be very surprised if there was a reason your smart meters meant you couldn’t switch. That wouldn’t be OK, switching should always be possible, otherwise it’s just not fair. So I’m hoping with a bit more info from you, we can work out your options. 

Tim

Hmm... looks like estimates to me, but I'll take a deeper look at this in the morning. 

UPDATE; since i’ve been away these are the readings from my meter. The red values are total since 20/07 when that spurious high value was displayed. the green values are the differences between readings.

Still struggling to understand how and why that anamolous value appeared in the readings. My ovo is still showeing 30kwh usage which I understand is an estimate and will be corrected, the question is when and what happens to the registered consumption since the last official reading was sent?

Extra note: I had forgotten to advise this earlier; when my billing year was up, OVO advised that we had registered well in excess of our payments and I needed to make an immediate payment of nearly £500 to bring it up to date and increase the DD to £260pm!! - I thought about this on holiday, could my meter have “jumped” previously because NOTHING of substance has changed in the last 15 months regarding our energy usage… @Blastoise186@Transparent@Jess_OVO ???

My gas (meter according to “MYOVO”  appears to be sending readings but not my electric meter, the red lights on it appear to flash in different combinations at different times, despite fairly normal usage in the property - is this normal?

Ah, so I’m not the only one sometimes getting negative gas usage (for me, only ever on days when the meter reading is estimated). I’ve had this happen a couple of times over the last fortnight, and wonder how things will look on my next monthly statement. The statement itself only gives meter readings (m^3) at the start and end of the  billing month, but to calculate how many kWh to charge for, Ovo need to know day by day usage through the month. Even Ovo must realise that they can’t use negative values there.

I think this comes back to something we asked the software developers to address over a year ago.

There needs to be an ‘indicator’ such as a colour-change on the usage histogram for

• an estimated reading
• an automated correction (such as a Smart Meter communication being restored)
• a manual correction

It is inevitable that such entries will continue to be required within the billing history, and there is no good reason to expect that customers should contact OVO to ask why!