Hi @Transparent , @fatbloke88 . Yes, still around, can read recent updates, but I happen just at the moment to be preoccupied with some urgent and rather intense measurement-related activity which is, perhaps surprisingly, nothing whatsoever to do with smart meters. (Which means, I’m sorry to say, I’ve no idea to think about the implications of this just at the moment. But that should change within a few days.)

BW

I’m still waiting for the system old/legacy to start collecting data and reporting/analysing it. I’m still unclear about if and how this will address historic readings/consumption data. I am confused, I really am.

does anyone know if the old system can tell me if we did use the amount of energy or will it at best simply say that was the data collected?

thanks

FB

I'm afraid I don't have any experience at all with the legacy billing system. My account is too new for it and I was immediately set up with the new billing platform. The best I've got is basically whatever resources I can gather from existing content, asking Tim/Jess or hoping that another member stops by.

@TomThumb is the only member I can think of who's had experience with it. He might be able to help.

I do know that most members have been migrated to the new platform now, and it's generally a one way trip. In addition, anyone being migrated from SSE to OVO is definitely going directly onto the new billing platform by default with no option to be placed on the legacy system. 

Sorry for delayed follow-up, FB. (I’m still preoccupied with other stuff.)

It’s quite a few years ago now, but I was on the old billing system and I do have the vaguest recollection that, when the mouse (this was the web portal, not a smartphone app) hovered over a bar on a usage chart a “tool tip” would appear (in the current/new system, the tool tip just shows the usage, in kWh, for that period) which showed the meter readings as well as the usage.

Certainly the meter readings used to be included in the information available via the unsupported-for-public-use non-API API until some vandal updated the system, sometime around June this year, since when they’ve been inaccessible. Or was it that someone said “we don’t use these any more, so why should anyone else be allowed access to them”. Perhaps @Tim_OVO will remember, and might even be able link to his reply to me, somewhere on this forum, in which this was quoted.

That’s not quite how they worded it, but that’s what it boiled down to. I would infer from this seemingly endless saga that Ovo aren’t actually in control over what they can access re their customers’ smart meter data.

Update I still havent heard anything from OVO but I enclose below the last months reading consumption values and annotatiuons of my own. I cant understand such variation and I can’t see a consistent equipment in use, can anyone see anything that I’m blind to at all please?

Would having lounge lights (lamp 1-2) for a few extra hours account for 3kWh/pd?

Laundry is so normal and regularly part of our consumption I would class it as almost background usage normally and expect it to be covered by the ave kWh of 14.xxpd.

If I put the lab heater on at all it is in the morning for an hour or so to take the chill off ( not as a regular or extended use device).

Having the decorator in is always infrequent and having to dry paint (weird paint) is very unusual.

Thought, suggestions comments welcome…

Cheers

FB

@Blastoise186@Simon1D@Transparent 

All I am once again confused. I Noticed something after my latest review of the data OVO sent me earlier this year; they were taking smart readings from 31/03/20. Despite this there is am anomaly  on 01/10/20 ther was a “site reading” with a significantly higher value than any smart reading to that point, further smart reads were also uploaded and they didn’t catch up with the “site” reading value until 10/12/20 see below:

The consumption difference of 2527 is almost the same consumption error/read (2580) that prompted my arrivalint this forum. how I came to this forum, see my earliest posts. Is it just a case of the reader pressed the wrong button or have I missed something here? I’m left with this question can I or any of us actually trust the data that is being uploaded. Were these smart readings just estimates again?

As of todays date I am still back on the OVO legacy system so I cant begin to try and fathom where we are up to with them and I am more than a bit concerned. I am keeping up with daily reads of the meter (see ablove post) and am still seeing apparently high usage on some days that I can’t seem to find a logical explanation for.

I see spikes in usage that seem high for extra lights and longer durations etc. Given that we cook meals most days and do laundry 1-2 week throughout the year the only additional consumption should be the lights (strip lights in my lab, low energy buls amd LED’s in other lights minimum usage). Is the rise in consumption 2.5kWh pd normal / expected?

I’ve no idea what on earth Ovo think they are doing. These data would seem to demonstrate a fundamental incompetence/inattention on Ovo’s part when faced with entirely reasonable queries  by FB88. Would anyone from Ovo care to explain why there has not yet been an apology pending the payment of compensation?

This saga hovers somewhere between farce (as it might appear to the disinterested onlooker) and tragedy (from the point of view of the victim).

@Tim_OVO@Jess_OVO ?

Good morning, @fatbloke88, @Simon1D and festive greetings to you as we near the end of 2021. 

I’m really very sorry to hear this still hasn’t been cleared up for you, @fatbloke88, one way or another. 

I’ve copied below parts of the last two comments from me on this thread, which at the time outlined that as this account specific issue has been escalated to the highest point internally, it’s not appropriate for OVO Forum staff to comment or speculate:

I can’t offer anything new from me or Jess here. @fatbloke88 if you’ve not been able to agree a resolution with your individual case handler, you’re able to escalate this to the Energy Ombudsmen. If you haven’t already, I’d definitely make sure you have this conversation with your complaint’s case handler as soon as you can. 

I hope this gets resolved for you,
Tim

Latest update:

since being transferred to old (legacy) billing system 10 weeks or so I have heard nothing. I’ve written to my so called contact point on 3 separate occasions and not even a courtesy response has been received.

I now feel that I have given OVO every reasonable chance to resolve this issue and they have failed to do so. I want to go to the regulator now to try and resolve this. Does anyone have the contact data to hand at all please @Tim_OVO@Jess_OVO ??

Thank you

NB I’ll pop back with a progress report once I have something to say!!

I’m afraid you cannot go to the regulator Ofgem for something like this. If you try to do so, your compliant will be bounced back as Ofgem have delegated complaints handling to the Energy Ombudsman. Please see https://www.ombudsman-services.org/sectors/energy if you want to escalate this.

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve not received any recent contact regarding your complaint, @fatbloke88. I’ve passed this on to our Complaints Team who should be in touch with you directly.

I hope this helps get the issue resolved. 

Hello all

the saga continues at it’s glacial pace, read on: emphasis mine

on 6/12/21

To be clear, by full control of the meter I mean being able to link it correctly to the billing platform which we were not able to previously do. 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.

Your account is now back on the old billing platform and the technical team are in the process of getting everything set up so we are able to bill using actual readings. I will check again over the next 5 working days to see what progress has been made and will be in contact with you again.

Okay they didn’t manage that as you can tell from previous updates.. lack of communication following this was due to a mistyped email address which is/was my fault at first registration way back guilty as charged!

02/02/2022

email received explaing above miscommunication issue and ...

At the moment we are still in the process of trying to understand why the meter readings coming through from your meters are not being automatically picked up by either billing platform.

We can see that there was a step back in the reads coming from the electricity meter when the meter was enrolled onto a system called Bol which is managed by the Data Communications Company (DCC). The enrolment of the meter was part of a UK wide scheme to allow meters to switch between suppliers with less problems as all suppliers will have access to the same meter management system and information.

To put this into context, you provided a read on the 30th August 2021 of 58432, but a reading we pulled from the meter on the 12th November was 56972. We believe this is due to a different register on the meter being pulled through and would mean that your consumption data was / is out of line and would produce some rather confusing results when reviewing your usage. Both registers will advance by the same number of units but are usually displaced.

Because of the above, I would imagine the meter read you can see is higher than the meter reads we are getting by approximately 3597 units.

As we are having issues being able to fix the way the reads are coming from your current meter(s), I would suggest to speed matters up that we exchange your meters for the second generation of smart meter and bill the old meters off to readings from the exchange date. This would allow us to accurately bill you for usage from the old meters. We will then be able to start afresh from the install readings from the new meters.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ok so far; A follow up call received last week and some lengthy discussions about the above and exchange of reads from me to OVO, results of which are to be seen but as I understand it from the above mail and conversation:-

No matter which “register” is being used for consumption purposes, they should advance by the same value even though they may report out different total read values (is this correct?) It seems logical and fair to me, am I wrong?

Now onto the historical issue of end of year settlement last year, in which we discussed consumption since this started and which I have been keeping as you know regular (daily) and detailed checks on.

I once again explained that I am at a complete loss to understand how the extra consumption occurred because comparing my personal reads with their SMART reads this year to last year there is no correlation in consumption patterns. Usage this year has been as you can see from posts passim has less than a quarter of what was supposedly used last year and as I explained again with NO difference in consumption patterns etc..

It was agreed that (hasty end to call owing to other pressures) a full historical review of all available data would be conducted by caller and on completion some further action may be instigated not least the fitting of the new meter and possibly a full and FREE site meter check.

My current thinking;

given that the meter appears to recording fairly regular consumption (some strange high usage that I struggle to understand despite keeping log notes on my reading spreadsheet) I am not sure that it is a faulty meter, but what do you think?

I can’t recall all of the conversation and it was interrupted unfortunately I’m not sure I’m any closer to resolving the fairly large bill from last year.

I’m struggling to see how this can be resolved by simply looking at nubers they already have and can’t alter…

Thoughts welcome and please correct any misinterpretations or mistakes I may have made.

Thanks

I’ve known a lot of issues with getting S1 meters migrated to DCC reliably and it’s not just OVO that’s affected by it. For me, upgrading to S2 solved pretty much all my issues after some further troubleshooting to properly get the old S1 meter de-registered from basically everything. I was able to remain on the new billing platform the entire time.

I personally would recommend accepting the upgrade anyway. S2 is waaaaaay better than S1 in a billion different ways and it will almost certainly resolve the entire issue. This would probably also allow your account to be returned to the new billing platform either via a manual migration, or by letting the automated migration pick up your account again later on.

Starting afresh with a new meter means that OVO can archive all the old readings and get your account back up and running. It’s not a solution that gets offered very often because OVO doesn’t get any incentives to upgrade members from S1 to S2 and has to swallow the full cost, but it’s ultimately one of the best solutions when pretty much everything else has failed. I think you’ll just have to accept that the usage data from your S1 meter is corrupted and you’ll never be able to rely on it. If you wish, you can ask OVO to continue trying to fix your issue without a meter exchange, but you run the risk of dragging this issue on for much, much longer if you decide to take this route.

I know all of this from personal experience as I had a similar issue myself for several months - I just never really mentioned it to anyone on the basis my S1 meter at the time was one of the first S1 Aclara meters that was being migrated and it would be inevitable that something might not work properly.

If you accept the MEX, this allows OVO to retrieve a final reading from the removed meter and bills can be regenerated based on what the meter display itself said. If this means that a couple of thousand kWh need to be knocked off the bill to correct the over-readings, that can be arranged as well. If this is the case, you’ll get a pretty healthy refund as well - along with a long bill that shows how OVO worked it out again.

I know this might not be the answer you’re hoping for from the forum, but I think it’s about the best I can offer based on the circumstances and the discussions we’ve had with you on here.

I suspect you are right and that is where we will end up. I certainly like the sound of a refund and I’d love to lower my DD, though watch with this round of price increases coming through that probably wont happen!!

I can’t say for sure whether your DD would drop or whether you’d get a refund, but it can be arranged if you’re owed it. Alternatively, it might just offset the increases and leave your payments as-is instead. Hard to say really.

It’s a pretty generous offer though, especially since OVO is having to swallow a fairly big bill in order to pull this off. Don’t forget that it’s not cheap to replace a meter!

@Blastoise186@Simon1D@Transparent@Jess_OVO@Tim_OVO 

Update:

Probably most important I managed to log the complaint with the regulator, took a while as the site seemed to be undergoing a lot of maintenance and it took ages to copy/paste all the email chains. Tedious that certainly was!

After quite a while where we were unable to access our account for ??reasons I have in the last few weeks been able to see it again and input meter readings. I have been doing this since 12/02/22. Additionally as and when I have time to look at the data therein, I often find that nothing is available to me to see in the usage charts (once or twice there was some data) but more often nothing to display. What a good job I’m keeping almost daily records…

Statements and billing

When I look at my statement for Dec 21-Jan 22  (latest I can see) it shows a consumption of 1172kWh, whereas my readings throughout that period show 518kWh, my readings are taken as I say almost daily throughout this period are less than half of the consumption that Ovo are estimating. or should I say seriously overestimating…

The next available statement in the account is for Apr-May 20. I realise I havent been paying too much attention to the bills/consumption as I thought they were reasonably covered by the monthly DD. This does not I belive excuse Ovo of their responsibility to bill accurately and regularly, something I think they have failed to do. Lets leave that for the regulator to resolve… I hope.

Currently Ovo advise that our account appears to be in arrears by about a months worth of consumption but I dont know if that discrepancy is based on actual reads see above or estimates. Anyone any ideas? I am just so confused by this...

Hi @fatbloke88 ,

I just wanted to let you know I’ve seen your post, but I’m on my phone right now and this is something I’m better off using a PC to reply to properly. Can you give me a few hours and I’ll be home by six?

Unfortunately, I’ve not seen Simon nor Transparent active on the forum recently and they appear to be taking a break at the moment.

Thanks

Ok, I’m back.

Firstly, I want to give you a heads up. As it sounds like you’ve now taken the matter to the Energy Ombudsman, you’ll no longer be able to resolve it with OVO directly until after the ombudsman case is resolved. I also take a stance that I will not trample on the Energy Ombudsman myself, so I’m afraid I will be unable to give you much help or advice on this issue at this time. I also extend this to related matters, so I won’t be able to comment on whether your usage estimates seem accurate, sorry about this.

It’s a stance I take in order to protect myself and maintain my position as an independent forum volunteer. Unfortunately, this does mean you might not get the answers you’re hoping for from me right now, but I don't want to say one thing and then have the ombudsman say another. I’m not sure Tim and Jess will be able to comment either, but they might still stop by.

All I can say is that I know the new case management system the Energy Ombudsman uses has had a lot of teething issues which didn't exist in the legacy Peppermint system. I’ve never used either one myself, I just happen to know because I’ve read the reports from their Independent Adjudicator where it’s referenced multiple times.

My stance on this only applies to the matters you escalate to the ombudsman. I’m more than happy to chat with you about anything else though.

I’m sorry this isn’t what you were expecting me to say, but I hope you can understand my reasons. It’s a personal decision I made when I joined the forum back in November 2020 and it’s one that I’ve stuck by the entire time.

@blastoise no problem, thanks for the thoughts and input up to now. Ill keep this thread updated and my fingers crossed.

Hi there, 

We have a gas engineer finally coming out to look at our faulty gas meter next month - but I wanted to pick anybody’s brain about this and see if anyone has gone through something similar because it’s causing me an insane deal of stress! 

We only use gas for heating, our hob & hot water. Our heating hasn’t been on since early April, and we’re both out of the house from 6:30am - 4:30pm on weekdays.

These are what our meter readings have gone like for the last few months:

27/05/22 - 9993

30/06/22 -10003 (last normal reading)

29/07/22 - 9818 (start reading backwards?!)

07/08/22 - 12479 (Almost 3k increase?!)

23/08/22 - 15744 (3k increase again!?)

We’ve turned on the hob and hot water separately and checked the meter whilst doing this and it’s going up a few units a minute, and I know this isn’t right. I just want to make sure it’s definitely a faulty meter, as I’m so anxious the gas engineer isn’t going to do anything. 

Any advice would be appreciated. 

Thank you,

C.

Hi @Claire96 - thanks for flagging this. 

It’s very odd to see the meter readings go backwards and then jump up. My first thought was to question if any of these were estimated or not… It’s good to hear you’ve already got an engineer visit booked. If they can prove a fault, we’ll be recalculating your usage so you’re not overcharged. 

The only other advice I can give is to suggest you give the topic above read, as we list a few tricks you can use to work out what’s the cause of high usage:

Hope this helps,
Tim

Im currently on my first month with ovo energy, and not sure how I’ve been using only £1+ a day on electric and all of the sudden I’ve apparently used £35+ in one day and all of the sudden I’ve been using £4+ a day?! It’s only myself who lives at home and never in!

Where are you seeing these amounts? On the OVO app?

Hey @Lowri,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community.

Can we get a bit more information on this? Have you submitted a reading which has caused a catch up bill or do you have a smart meter that’s been not in communication so we’ve been estimating usage?

Here are some great guides which might help answer your query:

If you are talking about the plug in device (In Home Display) the figures on this may be incorrect. This won’t affect your billing, you get billed to your readings from your meters. I’d log into your Online Account, check your statements and readings.

Hope this helps. 

Hi all, 

Having read a few threads on this forum it seems like a good place to get some advice on my smart meter, which I suspect might be reading high. I'll put my hands up first of all, as I've not fully researched this issue myself yet, that's a WIP but I'm hoping some of you guys might be able to save me a few hrs googling and point me in the right direction. 

So, I have an Aclara SGM 1433-B, which based on my initial research appears to be a beast of a meter and about as good as they get. This is because I'm on a three phase supply and will be installing solar PV shortly and a 22KW EV charger, so it's definitely the right unit for my needs. My property is a 4 bed detached 1990's build with mostly blown double glazing (it's a project house) and mediocre insulation. The problem is that since starting to use the smart meter my consumption appears to have gone crazy, and as I have my heat pump metered seperately for RHI purposes I can see what it is using vs the rest of the property.  Having visibility of my daily consumption is arguably part of the fight I've gotten, but even taking peaks and troughs into account on my old readings the figures I'm getting now still seem bonkers. E. G. So far today I have consumed almost 70kwh(!), yes that's today, since midnight, not this week!  Now in fairness around 20 of that went straight into the EV, but the rest has been used by the heat pump and other appliances. The problem is my heat pump whilst accounting for the lions share of our consumption, does not account for all of it.  As an example last night 5kwh was consumed by other stuff whilst we were all in bed, during which time the heating was off, and appliances (all of which are post 2008 and presumably standby reg compliant) were in standby mode and not in use. This morning between starting work and lunchtime 8kwh was consumed by other stuff, OK I have a laptop and two led monitors plus two lamps with led bulbs to add into the mix, but thats about it when I wfh. This seems crazy high, and I cannot fathom where all this energy is going. 

I started monitoring this yesterday and logging readings a few times per day, but I'm only on day 2 so need a bit more data, and to do a few more experiments before I get a clear picture. Conveniently I am on a bivalent heating setup where my boiler kicks in when the ASHP becomes less efficient, so with a bit of rewiring earlier I now have it setup so I can manually switch it over from ASHP to gas boiler at anytime (saving either the planet or the pennies, as I like to see it!). I did this tonight so this will help rule out any issues with the ASHP meter, and also give me a true comparison of the cost of the heat pump vs gas,but it doesn't help with pinning down the huge parasitic loss I seem to have, which would only be explained by the ASHP meter under reading, or me boiling the kettle for a few hrs in my sleep, which I'm fairly sure isn't the cause!

Now the reason I ask about the meters accuracy is two fold, one my consumption appears to have shot up massively since having it, and secondly having done a (very) quick Google I can see that some smart meters can apparently overread depending on how the current is being measured. It seems the confusing factors are led bulbs on dimmers, low energy modes on power hungry appliances which power cycle or operate at varying frequencies, and high draws to DC. Well I have hue bulbs throughout the house which are never at 100%, my ASHP is invertor driven and ramps up, and I have an EV, so it seems that I have somewhat of a perfect storm as far as  smart meter inaccuracies may be concerned!!

I clearly still have some testing to do to get a better idea where the drains might be, so I'm not sure exactly what my questions to you guys are yet, other than does anyone happen to know whether this meter has any kind of form for misreading, and are there any other ways I could easily verify/quantify my usage? 

Im not yet convinced that the meter is definetly the culprit, but it would certainly be a viable and convenient explanation, although probably a difficult one for me to diagnose and prove conclusively.  Hence reaching out here in the hope someone has perhaps been down this road already and might be able to help show me the way? 

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