I think my meter is clocking too fast - How can I test if my high usage is due to a faulty meter?
Updated on 17/08/23 by Abby_OVO
Your guide to checking the accuracy of your meter: How to carry out a Creep Test, a circuit check and book a Meter Accuracy Test (MAT)
Have you noticed an unexpected change in the amount of energy your meter’s clocking? Are you worried that it might not reflect what you’re actually using? We’ve made this guide to help outline all of your options so you can be confident that everything’s working as it should, and you’re only being charged for what you’re actually using.
My bill is higher than usual
First things first, it’s always worth checking that your charges are based on actual readings rather than estimated readings.
You can view the latest statement on the ‘Billing history’ page of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS).
‘Download this bill’ or ‘View details’ to see if the reading is estimated (hint: it will say estimated next to the reading if this is the case). By checking the reading on the meter and submitting it on the ‘meter readings’ page you can correct any over-estimated readings.
It’s also worth checking that you’ve been charged the correct unit rates and standing charges. These might have changed recently if your fixed plan came to an end or if there’s been a price change to your variable plan. We’ll always get in touch before this happens to let you know but you can also check the prices on your current plan (and whether you could switch to a cheaper plan) on the ‘Plan’ page.
The details on the bill are correct but I’m sure I didn’t use this much
Higher than normal usage is normally due to changes in your usage patterns (which aren’t always easily spotted). Can you think of any reason why you might have used more than you expected recently? Common factors might be a colder than usual season, buying a new appliance or a change in circumstances (extra householders or working from home for example). It’s best to take these factors into consideration when trying to explain a sudden increase in usage.
If you haven’t already got a smart meter then this might be a good time to get one installed. Get your free smart meter installation booked here. Not only are new meters more accurate, they also allow you to monitor your usage over a half-hourly, daily or monthly view with some handy usage graphs on the usage page of your online account or OVO app. Using these you can pinpoint when exactly your usage peaks which can really help get to the bottom of what might be causing the increase. Notice a spike at exactly the time your immersion heater is set to come on? This might explain things!
I’ve got high gas usage, should I check my boiler?
The most likely cause of an unexplained increase in how much gas you’re using (and it’s always worth checking your usage against the same period last year, as it’s very seasonal!) could be down to a faulty gas boiler. A boiler which is older or potentially faulty can use more gas to achieve the same heat output. If you’ve got the OVO Homeplan, an annual boiler check is included to make sure your boiler health is checked regularly. If you don’t have this, it might be worth considering contacting a gas safe engineer to make sure your boiler’s in tiptop condition.
What’s the best way to locate an energy guzzling appliance?
Worried that your electricity usage seems high? By checking the usage of each circuit you might be able to find out the particular appliance which is the culprit. The meter will need to have decimals showing in the reading for this test to be useful:
Leave the main breaker in.
Turn off all individual circuits (on the fuse board, for example).
The electricity meter should stop clocking usage. If not, there could be a short in the fuse/breaker panel box or an appliance connected without fuse/breaker protection. An electrician will be needed to investigate this.
Turn on one individual circuit.
Watch to see if the electric meter starts to clock usage.
Turn off that individual circuit and turn on another one. Again, watch to see if the electric meter is clocking.
Repeat step 6 until all individual circuits have been checked.
You’re looking for a circuit that causes the meter to clock a lot of usage, compared to the other circuits. There could be a problem with an appliance or a connection on that circuit. We’d recommend contacting an electrician to check the appliances on this circuit, particularly if there are any old or potentially faulty appliances plugged in. Find out the average usage for each appliances on this great guide and some great energy saving advice on the Centre for Sustainable Energy.
How do I perform a Creep Test on my electricity meter?
If you’ve been unable to get to the bottom of an increase in our usage by locating a greedy appliance, the next step would be to carry out an initial check on the accuracy of the meter with a ‘Creep Test’. To carry this out: turn off the power to your fuse box and check if the meter continues to clock. If the meter clocks (more than 1 - 2 units which could be down to residual power in the wires) then it's either faulty, or clocking someone else’s usage.
If your meter is in a communal meter cupboard, sometimes the meter details can get mixed up. Firstly it’s worth checking the meter serial number on the meter matches the serial number registered on your account. You can see this on the ‘Meter readings’ page of your online account.
Even if the meter serial number matches, there is a chance that your meter details have been mis-registered. If you suspect this might be the case, contact our Support Team who can arrange a ‘fuse finder’ to confirm which meter is clocking your usage.
How do I book a Meter Accuracy Test (MAT)?
Completed a ‘Creep Test’ and seen a possible fault? The next step would be to book in a ‘Meter Accuracy Test’ (MAT), by contacting our Support Team.
As the MAT involves an engineer visit, there’s an upfront charge to get this arranged, which will be reimbursed if a meter fault is confirmed. A meter is considered faulty if it’s clocking at least 2.5% faster or 3.5% slower than it should. It’s worth considering all other possible causes for a usage spike before booking in this appointment as we can’t guarantee the results, and the cost of this test won’t be refunded if the meter is clocking within the above tolerances. If the meter is found to be faulty, we’ll replace it and re-calculate all the statements issued since the meter fault began. These statements will be based on your average usage, or your usage clocked by the new meter.
Hope this helps get to the bottom of your meter accuracy concerns. Have you noticed a recent spike in your usage and need help working out why? Comment below as we love to help you investigate!
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Good afternoon all!
Some comments on your latest data @fatbloke88 …
...
1submit a new manual reading and review the HH data each day on MyOvo - not helpful as I can’t discern a consistent pattern
2 copy a bunch HH readings from MyOvo and paste into Excel spreadsheet
3 strip out unnecessary data (duplicated time fields).
4 pull out actual read value from xxkWh field
5 convert the above from text to numbers data type
6 amalgamate all of resulting data into one table
7 sum up all readings from above on a daily basis to give daily total
8 create bar chart from above data (excluding daily totals) - is this the best type of chart for this?
9 pull in daily consumption values from MyOvo
10 Notice discrepancies 21.43 kWh /13days - is this just because of roundings and simple summarising via Ovo?
11 pull in my own daily readings from the same period still shows a discrepancy of 16.86 (possibly 30.75)kWh/13days.
Points to consider:
Ovo HH readings are I believe consistent in time of day taken
The usage chart is not what is used for billing
Personal readings are not always taken at same time of day
I may have created an error in my data manipulation/analysis
So far so good. Working that way can get a little tedious (I say from experience!) but before long, you begin to get a feel for what the data are doing…
...
Questions:
Why does the Ovo consuption chart not reflect accurately the HH reading/consumption values
Does the slight time difference between my daily readings affect any of the above
Why is there such a difference between the consumption values
Is there something going adrift within the Ovo consumption calculation system
It’s for Ovo to offer their own explanations, but I would suggest the following as helpful hints:
The “daily” usage chart (the one with a specific date in the title, and HH consumption values) is direct from the meter (electricity) or direct from the meter but converted from volume (m^3) to energy (kWh), using a nominal CV = 39.5 MJ/m^3 and the formula kWh = m^3 * CV * 1.02264 / 3.6. I strongly suspect that Ovo makes little or no internal use of these data.
The “monthly usage chart (the one with a list of dates and a kWh value against each date differs from (A) in at least three respects:
The values are obtained by calculation rather than directly from the smart meter. Each usage is the difference between successive nightly meter readings. These meter readings are not always successfully retrieved, but are the ones on which billiing is based.
The timing of the meter readings does not quite align with the timing associated with the HH usage data. For this reason, even if all the usage data and all the smart readings are available, the sums of HH usage values, 48 at a time, give slightly different totals to daily usage values on which Ovo’s bills are based. (This is over and above the potential confusion regarding CV - the daily usage values for gas do actually use the correct CV, within a day or so of the national grid publishing them. For gas, this timing discrepancy evaporates because there are no smart readings other than the ones taken every 30 min.
For reasons that have yet to be explained, the monthly bill covers the usage that starts at 12:30 am on the first day, and ends at 12:30 am on the day after the last day. (This is shown convincingly in the case of gas, where things work out to better than a millionth of a kWh, but in the case of electricity, you just find that the sum of HH usages agrees very well with the daily usage figure if this 30 minute error is corrected, but not so well if that error is not corrected).
In my own opinion, there is indeed something going adrift (as you politely put it) in some of Ovo’s estimates.
Thanks for posting your data, but forgive me if I hold off from a close examination ;-)
An extra comment or two will follow...
Not unrelated to @fatbloke88‘s questions, I’ve been looking in more detail at my own IHD recently. I’m in the fortunate position that, aside from only about half the nightly gas meter readings being retrieved successfully by Ovo, everything else about my smart meters seems to be working ok. In particular, almost all the HH usage data get through successfully. (It’s a shame, therefore, that Ovo seem not to make as much use of the HH data as they might.)
So, the info that has caught my attention is the usage so far data, which is available
so far today, so far this week, so far this month, and so far this year.
From my own observations (of an IHD and meter that seem to be working fine) I’ve concluded that something (either the IHD, or the meter, or the Comms Hub, I can’t say which) is taking the difference between the current meter reading and a stored meter reading. I can explain what I see no other way: these usage so far values are live and update as one would expect them to, given how the current meter reading changes.
With care, one can work out what the stored meter readings are (with a precision of 0.001 kWh, despite the usage so far values only being shown as a whole number of kWh when they are 100 kWh or more).
I believe these readings were taken within a minute or so of midnight at the start of 1 Jan this year, and the start of the 1st of the current month, and the start of Monday this week, and last night.
I’m still reviewing the data I’ve recorded from my own meter, but it would be fascinating to do this with @fatbloke88 ‘s IHD to see what those old meter readings are.
BW
PS in the case of a new account, I suppose that the new supplier resets these old meter readings (especially if they’re stored in the IHD - I’m unclear to what extent the supplier can go trampling over data stored in the meter/comms hub, and kind of hope that they’re not able to do that but, because it relates to billing, I fear that DCC will let them do exactly that) to ones that relate to the day the account opens, as best they can, anyway.
I’m confused: Can anyone offer insights into this at all please? It looks totally random to me. Yes I can see usage spikes for cooking I can account for some variation with laundry days (washing and drying). Apart from that I cant see anyhing other than a weird suspension bridge! Is this the best kind of chart for this type of data.
Note: this is only from 12:00pm midday onwards for the period in question. The last day in the above sequence is missing 11:00 and 11:30PM readings for some reason @Tim_OVO
This is the summary table data from the above chart and this is the bit that confuses me most;
The difference between the reads I take and submit and the HH reads allegedly given by the SM is astonishing. 34.59kWh units over 15 days!!
Am I doing something wrong in my collection and analysis or is there a fault somewhere in the Ovo system?
Thoughts and suggestions please, all welcome @Blastoise186@Simon1D@Transparent
Sheesh!
It’s only 10 o’clock on a Monday morning and I’m already getting fresh homework from @fatbloke88
That’s a lovely plot, @fatbloke88!
The meaning of it all is less obvious, but I’m off to get a coffee (it’s still early, but we put the clocks back, etc) and will settle down to rectify that…
Back in a bit, I hope.
Cheers
I’m confused: Can anyone offer insights into this at all please? It looks totally random to me. Yes I can see usage spikes for cooking I can account for some variation with laundry days (washing and drying). Apart from that I cant see anyhing other than a weird suspension bridge! Is this the best kind of chart for this type of data.
Note: this is only from 12:00pm midday onwards for the period in question. The last day in the above sequence is missing 11:00 and 11:30PM readings for some reason @Tim_OVO
This is the summary table data from the above chart and this is the bit that confuses me most;
The difference between the reads I take and submit and the HH reads allegedly given by the SM is astonishing. 34.59kWh units over 15 days!!
Am I doing something wrong in my collection and analysis or is there a fault somewhere in the Ovo system?
Thoughts and suggestions please, all welcome @Blastoise186@Simon1D@Transparent
So, let me test my understanding by describing how you’ve processed the data, @fatbloke88 … (please put me straight where needed)
You’ve got 15 days’ worth of HH usage data (afternoon values only), copied and pasted (I assume) from the Electricity, Usage, Daily pages of My Ovo (the web portal) and stacked up in the plot so that we can see the total broken down not by day (as we’re more used to seeing) but by time of day.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the HH values are only ever kWh per half-hour. What you get when you read the meter is the accumulation of these since the meter was installed (or whenever it was reset to zero).
To relate the two, you have to take the difference between any two of your meter readings and that should be close to the sum of all the HH usage values between the times when you took your readings.
Somehow, to make sense of the comparison, you’d need to be taking readings at midday (and midnight, presumably) each day, to pin down how much of the daily usage is happening am, and how much pm.
My turn to pause, see if that makes sense to you, and allow you to correct any misunderstandings there might be on my side.
Cheers
PS It might be ok to just observe what your IHD says around midday, every day - it will show you the meter reading, and the usage “kWh so far today”. Just to save you the trouble of actually reading the meter at midnight, I mean. If you’ve got both numbers for each day, that should be helpful in making sense of things, going forwards from now, anyway.
PPS The missing values from yesterday evening are to do with the clocks being put back, and the web portal My Ovo does a really poor job in handling that. If you have the smartphone app, that is much better, and worth looking at for yesterday’s data, even though the copy/paste trick no longer works… (I’m not sure if you can see what’s in the Treehouse area, but I posted something on this earlier today, here)
I have now sent an updated email with the above data and questions to Ovo CS team in the hopes of resolving the issue to our mutual satisfaction. I wonder what the outcome of this latest missive will be?
Thanks for the update, @fatbloke88.
Ok, so the read at xx time in HH data set is the kWh used sinced the last HH completed, yes?
Yes indeed.
Why would it be close rather than exact? Is there something that would allow or generate a discrepancy and if so would you expect it to be of the size as per the data set?
The complication is that the HH usage data are increments in the meter reading, i.e. the amounts by which the reading would have increased, every 30 minutes, if we’d been taking readings at exactly the right moments, but we take our readings when we take them, and that’s at slightly different moments in time.
So, “close to” really means with the few tenths of a kWh that might plausibly have been consumed in the intervening time. This is definitely not potentially a several kWh discrepancy. (I’m just cautious in the way I express things. Or try to remember to be...)
I do have the HH readings for all of the above throughout the midnight - midday period showing circa 0.2kWh/HH. For this reason I did not provide it to make the chart more readable during the active period, I can provide that for comparison purposes if required.
As you do have all the HH usage figures, I would suggest the following. First, I’ll identify the key data:
You have your 15 readings, taken around 9:30am daily (meter readings, not usage values)
Ovo has its readings, taken nightly, around midnight (as far as I know). Also meter readings, not usage values. The only place I know to get these is in the smartphone app (where they’re truncated to whole kWh). Of course, it may be that the smartphone app doesn’t list many daily readings at all, because they had to be estimated. (My app only ever shows the “smart” readings. If Ovo had to estimate, that date is just missing from the list. If very many are missing, that would be revealing in itself...)
Ovo does present what it thinks the daily usage is. These are usage data, not readings. (They are increments in the meter reading, from one day to the next - sorry for the repetition, but I’d like others reading this to understand things as well as we do.)
You have the HH usage data, already in a spreadsheet.
Next, the analysis I would make
subtract your earliest meter reading from all the others. The result of this subtraction is a value which is the total usage since the moment of that first reading. It’s as if the meter had been reset to zero when you took that first reading.
Do the same thing with Ovo’s readings. Their first reading will have been taken within a few hours of your first reading (first in this set)
add up Ovo’s daily usage figures, starting with the day you took your first reading.
add up the HH data, also starting at a moment close to the time of your first reading.
You now have four versions of what should be the same thing, i.e. the answer to the question, how much energy (kWh) did I use from date x to any point, N days later than x. where N is anything from 1 to 15.
Since they’re the same thing, they should agree pretty closely.
Good luck
Latest update summary EXTREME FRUSTRATION!!!
I have had since my last post on here no less than 5 agents all who seem to have different titles and frankly a complete lack of understanding of the core complaint.
The latest of which is an “Advanced Resolution Specialist”, “A senior Advisor”
in no particular order I’ve also had a manager Jack and Niamh
agents Ivan, Kaitlin, Anand, Nathan
Despite being advised in an email that HH readings were being collected, it appears they aren’t. Yet MyOvo clearly shows HH consumtion data!
Ive had a mail on 05/11 telling me that my meter read od 31/08 is inconsistent and can’t be used. You see my point about not being informed!!!
Since 31/08 I have been supplying the readings myself, with zero thanks acknowledgement or appreciation by Ovo!! Every read is supported by a time stamped photograph on my phone and I’m getting more than a little frustrated by the complete lack of progress.
Nobody why my meter isnt submitting or Ovo arent collecting consumption data, no one can rectify the unconfirmed excess charge we were asked to pay earlier this year
No one takes responsibility and no one reads or takes in the information that I have provided in full before answerin only a portion of same.
@Tim_OVO@Jess_OVO perhaps you can put me in touch with your director of customer services to see if we cant get this resolved once and for all? If anyone knows who to talk to please do chip in.
I have advised OVO CS teams that I am now ready to forward all mails chat logs and forum mesages to the media by COP monday if I am not satisfied with progress by then.
A miracle the smart meter lives!!!
Now what I have to do is follow the readings it gives on my phone and lets see what it says, figure out with Ovo why the massive discrepancy for last year +£500 settlement, get it refunded, (no evidence that we did actually use it) as I believe data supports us….
What do you think our chances are??
@Blastoise186@Simon1D@Transparent
oh one other query OVO how come youve managed to produce HH consumption values if you werent reading the meter?
You surely wouldn’t have made it up would you?
Nice. I wonder if your meters have just completed the migration to DCC perhaps? Enrolment & Adoption can take a while and the ability to communicate with meters undergoing the process is somewhat limited between the point where the migration starts and the meter reconnects again via DCC.
I wouldn’t know for sure if that’s what your meters have been doing, but OVO can check the system and find out for you. Now that you’re (hopefully) getting Smart readings in, it might be worth thinking about whether you want Half-Hourly, Daily or Monthly readings again. I’d definitely recommend considering either Half-Hourly or Daily mode if you’d like to help prevent issues like this again - especially since you’d be able to spot them far more quickly if they do reoccur.
It’s possible that OVO might have been able to grab and rebuild your usage data from your meters, since the meters keep around 13 months worth of data before it starts to be overwritten. This data can be retrieved at anytime by the supplier if needed, even if they’ve previously retrieved it. Comes in rather useful sometimes. :)
Obviously, you won’t be expected to pay for any energy you didn’t actually use. If OVO can verify what your actual meter readings should have been all this time, it’s possible to do some heavy number crunching to recalculate and regenerate the bills that might have been affected. If that number crunching spits out a result that indicates a refund is due, OVO will be happy to make the arrangements. I think the Support Team can either have the refund credited to your account balance or fire up BACS to throw the cash directly back into your current vault at the bank via a Giro Bank Credit. Either way, there’d be an audit trail so you’d be able to find out where it goes to.
Definitely worth asking the Support Team to take a look into this. It might take a while, but they should be able to help.
HI @fatbloke88, please see Jess’s comment from a month or so back:
Sorry to hear this ones still not been fully resolved, @fatbloke88.
In this case it’s worth responding to the email you’ve received requesting that your complaint is escalated. If our Support Team aren’t able to reach a resolution that you’re happy with, the next stage of our Complaints procedure would be to escalate this to our dedicated Complaints team. At this point your complaint would be assigned to a complaint agent who would be the nominated point of contact as you describe.
From your message over the weekend I can see you’ve got now this assigned to the Complaints team. They wouldn’t want us to advise you any further on this one as they’re the point of contact for you on this issue.
All the best with this resolution,
Tim
HI @fatbloke88, please see Jess’s comment from a month or so back:
Sorry to hear this ones still not been fully resolved, @fatbloke88.
In this case it’s worth responding to the email you’ve received requesting that your complaint is escalated. If our Support Team aren’t able to reach a resolution that you’re happy with, the next stage of our Complaints procedure would be to escalate this to our dedicated Complaints team. At this point your complaint would be assigned to a complaint agent who would be the nominated point of contact as you describe.
From your message over the weekend I can see you’ve got now this assigned to the Complaints team. They wouldn’t want us to advise you any further on this one as they’re the point of contact for you on this issue.
All the best with this resolution,
Tim
Tim
Thanks and as I think you can see I’ve been round the ring a few times with this issue, despite the complaints team allegedly handling my complaint, it was closed.I In fact at least two have been closed without notifying me or advising me of the outcome. In essence they were the same complaint. I’m having to spend a lot of time on this issue, far more than I would have expected and it’s draining and distracting from my job.
I will follow up on @Blastoise186 suggestion about historical data but as I think we all agree it’s not likely a faulty meter or theft issue I’m going to be left looking at data suggesting we consumed a large amount of power with no actual evidence as to what, how or why. Very frustrating!
Confused again after literally typing out that last message and checking consumption and on the 12/11 this is what the usage shows;
HH 15.73 kWh V Daily 35kWh and there is no data showing for the daily consumption on 12 & 14/11 yet there are HH consumption values…
Why it leads me to wonder about the integrity of the systems, is it just me @Simon1D
...
Why it leads me to wonder about the integrity of the systems, is it just me @Simon1D
I’d say, not just you, @fatbloke88.
If you have the smartphone app, look at the list of what should be daily meter readings, under “Account”. My guess is that the reading for 14 Nov (which is the one taken near midnight on the 13/14 Nov, and which Ovo uses to arrive at its daily usage on both those days, 13 Nov and 14 Nov) will be missing from the list, but by now there should be a reading for 15 Nov. Here's what my app shows at the moment, for example:
My list for electricity is complete but, just for comparison, here's today's list for gas:
which, you'll see, is missing the reading from 12 Nov last week.
Looking at my daily gas usages from last week:
I know that those usages on 11 Nov and 12 Nov are Ovo estimates. I can compare them against the HH usages, added up over each day:
I’ve used the Bright app to get the daily totals of HH usages - the HH data are the same, they’re all retrieved via DCC, but the Bright app does the sum for me ;-)
You’ll notice that the daily figures match for 10, 13, 14 Nov (the days for which Ovo have both opening and closing readings) but not on 11, 12 Nov. Ovo made estimates, 45.44 and 46.69, which are different from the Bright app figures, 45.0 and 42.9.
But, remarkably, this is an occasion when Ovo made almost the best estimates it could because, for unrelated reasons, there is a gap in the HH data on 11 Nov:
and I happen to know (me? obsessive?? perish the thought...) that the consumption in that missing hour was a gas volume 0.380 m^3 which converts to 4.21 kWh.
So, no-one knows what that usage was - aside from me, who saw 4.20 kWh appear on my IHD as the first non-zero “so far today” figure on 11 Nov ;-)
But, because Ovo use opening and closing meter readings to get daily usage, they can fiddle their estimate for consumption on 12 Nov so that the total for the two days is correct:
Ovo’s total is 92.13 kWh
Bright app total is 87.9 kWh
The difference, 4.23 kWh, is within a gnat’s crotchet of the amount that I saw on the IHD, first thing on 11 Nov.
Ovo’s estimate for that day, is 0.44 kWh more than the sum of the available HH usages, and that really is an extremely plausible estimate for what might have be consumed during that missing hour. At that rate, I’d use 10 kW in a day and that is, in fact my typical minimum daily consumption (heating water only, in the summer, with the old boiler, now replaced).
But the thing that amazed me was that the estimate for 12 Nov has been adjusted (obviously?) so that the total over the two days is correct.
This is (I think, and perhaps @Transparent will confirm) the way Ovo’s estimates always used to work, but that stopped working sometime this summer just gone, and it was still not working last month, when I have two examples of the “sum” rule not being respected (documented elsewhere on this forum).
To be quite honest, I was amazed that Ovo seems to be doing the right thing again, for me, and for gas. But they haven’t gone back and corrected the estimates that they made late last month, and I wonder if they will do that before the end of the current billing month is up.
I know your questions are all about electricity usage, and the relation between HH and daily usage doesn’t work quite as perfectly as it does for gas (at least, when all the data are there), but it’s pretty close, and I suspect that Ovo’s cr*ppy estimation process is still being used there, now and back when your mystery consumption may or may not have happened.
Finally - have you tried looking at the other values on your IHD?
Usage so far today/this week/this month/this year??
I’m really interested to know if there is useful info there…
BW
PS Tagging in @Tim_OVO explicitly, even tho I’m sure Tim will see this anyway.
PPS I only say that Ovo made almost the best estimates that it could because, had it looked more carefully, it would have seen that the HH data for 12 Nov is complete, so that missing usage really should be all “apportioned” to 11 Nov (to be precise, that missing usage, I mean the usage inferred from the two meter readings they have, 48 hours apart, minus the usage that they have evidence for in the form of HH data, should be apportioned to that hour, nominally labelled 06:00 and 06:30 in Ovo’s list for 11 Nov). And no-one on earth can pin it down better than that because, as far as I can tell, it was at the moment separating those two HH intervals that the gas meter sent a reading, but the attention of the Comms Hub must have been elsewhere because that reading was never received. Without that reading, the Comms Hub couldn’t work out what the HH usages were for the interval before and the interval after that reading. It’s a little bit like Ovo’s experience with the missing meter reading at midnight, but on a smaller scale. I’m really not suggesting that these two missing readings are in anyway linked. That would be superstitious mumbo jumbo.]
(sorry for the overlong post. But sometimes I have to get these things off my chest)
...
Why it leads me to wonder about the integrity of the systems, is it just me @Simon1D
I’d say, not just you, @fatbloke88.
If you have the smartphone app, look at the list of what should be daily meter readings, under “Account”. My guess is that the reading for 14 Nov (which is the one taken near midnight on the 13/14 Nov, and which Ovo uses to arrive at its daily usage on both those days, 13 Nov and 14 Nov) will be missing from the list, but by now there should be a reading for 15 Nov.
...
On reflection, the questionable daily usage estimate is that one for 12 Nov. I’m guessing that Ovo have used their “evidence” of your “typical” usage, the one that includes that ridiculous and implausibly high value a few months back, to come up with an implausibly high value for 12 Nov. Since that is the first implausible daily usage in this sequence, I’m guessing they have a smart reading for 10/11 Nov but not for 11/12 Nov, so “12 Nov” will be the first reading that’s missing from your list. I’m less clear what might be going on after that. Maybe Ovo have realised that they shouldn’t try to make more than one estimate until they have an actual smart meter reading to keep them on the straight and narrow.
@fatbloke88 wrote:
as I think we all agree it’s not likely a faulty meter or theft issue
Erm… I haven’t concluded that you didn’t have a faulty meter when you had to pay OVO hundreds of pounds extra.
Just because us customers haven’t managed to arrive at an explanation for such a sudden jump in consumption doesn’t mean that the meter readings must’ve been correct.
The errors which @Simon1D and I have investigated/evaluated have been accumulative, based on lots of little mistakes and estimates.
That doesn’t match the experience you reported.
Well I thought I had it sorted (silly me). Spoke to an agent in senior resolutions and then email received and what follows is an extract of mine to Ovo:
Ovo have taken the £250 from the current in credit amount £775 and reduced the positive balance. This is not what I wanted or requested.
Our DD payment has been reduced and in the confirmation email I was advised that we will be £238 in debit at year end Mar 22.
Doesn’t that defeat the objective of point1??
We spent much time discussing and agreeing the errant values on our meter where the values tripled the average consumption between Jan 15 and Jul17 of just 18 kWh/pd were "strange and unaccountable.
We further discussed how our consumption since Jul 21 to date have averaged 14kWh/pd .
With that data as the evidentiary base I was asking for a refund of the excess charge of £500 levied in Mar 21.
My reasoning is that no matter what the readings were, there is still a large error being created somewhere which led to the excess usage/settlement charge.
Felt the need to remake this point again, sorry for CAPS; NOTHING I REPEAT NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN OUR HOUSE, CONSUMPTION PATTERNS OR IN ANY MATERIAL WAY, that would or could explain the readings/consumption jumping to 3x our normal usage.
What I wanted out if that conversation was:
1 acknowledgement that the data for reasons unknown to us or Ovo went awry.
2 agreement to REFUND half of the excess charge £250appx with no detriment to us.
3 that a reduction in the DD based on the historical average of 18kWh/pd be set up.
I believed I was making a fair offer to split the excess charge because I can not prove I didn't use it and Ovo can't prove I did. The readings are I believe erroneous and the data supports both my position and my request.
There was me thinking I’d made the point as per @Simon1D above and had resolved the issue. As I say, silly me eh??
Polite words fail me at this point, @fatbloke88
@fatbloke88 wrote:
Spoke to an agent in senior resolutions…
Ah! Well there’s two problems there:
a: You’re trying to speak to OVO on the telephone - a communication method for which they are able to retain a recording, but you are most likely not. I think your case is too complex to discuss in a ‘live’ call.
b: You really should have a single named manager assigned to your case, rather than an ‘agent in senior resolutions’.
This very public discussion has indicated historic errors in your account for which you have paid out real money. That shouldn’t be happening whilst @Simon1D has been going to great lengths to demonstrate that there are software errors within the Billing System, which is still under active development in-house.
If we were discussing technicalities of EV chargers or Heat pumps, then I would understand why those matters could only be handled by a senior manager with technical skills.
After all, if you look at the make-up of OVO Energy’s Board, they’re predominately from a business/finance background, rather than technical.
BUT… this IS a financial issue!
It needs to go straight to the Directors because it has serious implications for the way in which the company is able to provide customers with accurate bills.
Trying to resolve your particular account, @fatbloke88 by using a Senior Resolution Agent isn’t actually addressing the underlying issue.
Sorry to see the discussion is still continuing here and that you haven’t got this resolved, @fatbloke88 - to state the obvious, no one here has access to your OVO account or meter data, so the forum really isn’t well placed to offer anything beyond what has already been said.
I just need to quickly step in, as there’s some misadvice unfortunately. If that complaint is with a resolution specialist, that means it's already been escalated to a manager, and has been escalated to the next (and final) point internally. I’m confident this team of experts will offer a fair resolution to your complaint. If you’re not happy with the resolution when it’s submitted to you, the next stage is a deadlock letter and the Ombudsman. Full process outlined here.
More generally, I’d like to remind everyone that we don’t know the issue here, or if Simon’s observations around usage estimation (not billing) relate to this. I’m going to suggest that it’s not accurate to suggest otherwise without having access to anything other than forum comments. Our guidelines are in place to try and avoid potentially misleading advice (full T&Cs here), but we’d prefer not to have to remove posts given that I’m sure the comments were made with the best intentions.
Let’s keep this online space full of facts, and everyone benefits.
Update
after conversations where I thought we’d arrived a mutually agreeable solution, it appears I was wrong and my “one” point of contact has been changed to another “one” point of contact whom it appears can access systems and data that first “one” couldn’t/can’t.
The new one has advised that I can contact the ombudsman (yippeee) which I’m sure will achieve nothing.
Next I have been advised that they are transferring our data toa legacy system so that they can gain more control over my meter. I dont really understand this statement nor the reasoning for reverting to an older system. Can anyone advise on this at all @Blastoise186@Transparent@Simon1D please? How will it help? All it’s doing at the moment is extending the time as they have to close out live billing system account and open up legacy version which will take 15 days…
It was also sated that Sadly without the daily or half hourly usage data that we would usually have we are not able to speculate on why there may have been a difference from what you would usually expect.
My understanding was that HH meter reads were being taken anyway as can be seen from the charts above. I have asked for clarification on this matter as to why exactly they are doiung it, what they hope to gain beyond the current system and why the current system seems to incapable of delivering whatever it is they want from the legacy system.
I am truly confused
FB
Latest extract from email;
This will allow us to use actual reads automatically coming from the meters. The readings are coming through, the billing platform was not able to use them, hence needing to make some changes.
Why??
That’s interesting @fatbloke88
Previously the term ‘legacy system’ has been used by OVO when referring to the earlier billing system which was licensed from a 3rd-party.
That 3rd-party software had ‘issues’ with providing correct estimates in three different scenarios. This need not concern us now because it’s not estimates we’re interested in!
It’s quite possible that OVO have in-house expertise which might enable them to better use that old software to track your usage. The way in which the incoming data was used is quite different.
The email stated:
The readings are coming through, the billing platform was not able to use them
Now that I find fascinating.
OVO’s new Billing System (being developed by Kaluza) doesn’t communicate directly with our Smart Meters.
They’ve decided to licence uSmart which stands between Kaluza’s code and the software link/port operated by the Data Communications Company (DCC).
I have never previously heard OVO state that data is being retrieved but in such a way that their own Billing System couldn’t use it.
If they consider this problem applies to your site, then it’s likely to also affect a good many more. Bugs tend not to corrupt data associated with just one customer!
I wonder if @Simon1D is still around and can read this.
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