Why are my being billed to readings with a decimal place?

Thanks for your response Emmanuelle_OVO

From the screenshot you will will see an opening reading EST 26400 on 2 Jan and closing reading manual 26456 on 12th Jan. A simple subtraction gives a figure of 56 units used, yet as you can see OVO shows 5.80kWh used. I know this is to my detriment but I would prefer correct figures.

Also I have raised in previous comments why OVO does not show on my bill the actual calorific value used to finalize the bill.

Below is the requirement for energy companies on how to use calorific values:-

The following legislation does show requirement on how energy companies deal with CV data:-

Calculation of average calorific value in accordance with the Gas (Calculation of Thermal Energy) Regulations 1996

The CV used for consumer billing should be an average of the daily average values received from National Grid for the billing period. The use of a fixed CV, which some suppliers refer to as an ‘industry standard’, is not consistent with the Regulations. Requirement to truncate Regulation 3 (2) is clear that when calculating CV “any amount of less than 0.1 megajoules per cubic metre shall be ignored.”

This means that for a given gas billing period, suppliers should truncate the average CV to one decimal place. Rounding average CV is not consistent with the Regulations, nor is calculating to more than one decimal place.

All I need is for OVO to confirm this on my bill. OVO must have this averaged figure otherwise they could not accurately calculate my bill.

I know this data is issued for different areas of the country but OVO do need to average out the CV over the period of the bill. It is this figure that OVO have used to finalize my bill that I want to see on my bill. This enables me to check exactly the final cost. I have emailed and phoned without anyone being able to give me why iit is not available on the bill.

thanks again

Thanks for that Firedog

I am little confused about “rounding up”, why do whole numbers from readings need be rounded up? There may be an explanation but I have not seen one from OVO.  I can accept small ongoing discrepancies but it is just the ambiguity that seems to be the problem with various aspects like CV etc. If, and I am not saying this is the case at present, the “minor” rounding up and varying CV data leave customers 1p a month/year overcharged, with a reported 4.5M customers, probably not all on gas…….well you can work it out yourself, it’s not pennies in the wrong pockets. The simple point I am making is that when customers are charged the method used to calculate that charge should be open and available with absolute clarity. Just for clarity on my part, at present I do not have auto meter, so I enter readings daily, purely so I can evaluate OVO figure daily. Any discrepancy, which is pennies, usually to my benefit at the present allows me to reverse calculate criteria like CV figure data from National Grid average. I am waiting for my bill at the end of month when I will preempt, to the penny, what OVO should be charging.

As an aside…….my wife uses cosmetics, I don’t :-)))))

Can I also mention one of the reasons I am rather pedantic about OVO following my “forced” migration from SSE, is that OVO were fined £8.9m from wrongly charging customers in 2020. Not a great basis to start my account with confidence.

Firedog 

I did mention I do not use a smart meter. I enter readings daily manually. Whether the readings are rounded or or rounded down is not the issue here, as the only numbers I enter manually are whole numbers as can be seen above.  Opening reading EST 26400 on 2 Jan and closing reading manual 26456 on 12th Jan. A simple subtraction gives a figure of 56 units /kWh used. Not 55.80kWh as OVO shows. I do not enter any numbers after the decimal point. as can be seen from the readings above. There is no way two whole numbers can be used when one subtracted from another that the resulting difference will be a part number but OVO seem to be able to.

I don’t know if anyone would be interested in the following breakdown of my gas usage to date and the possible variation in calc. results :-

Gas 19 units used 2nd Jan to 14th Jan – my OVO account shows 216.067kWH used…..OVO do not show CV used to arrive at their figures.

calc. for kWh using rolling average for this period taken National Grid daily data :-

19  X 1.02264 = 19.430 x calorific value (actual running average from National Grid is 40.08462) =778.850 ÷ 3.6 = 216.347kWh used ????

To achieve the kWh used shown by OVO (216.067kWh) the calorific value would need to be (40.03310).

∴  to achieve OVO kWh showing :- the following calc. using CV (40.03250 ) needs to be used

19 x 1.02264  = 19.430 x corrected calorific value (40.0325) = 777.838 ÷ 3.6 = 216.066kWh

Don’t ask me yet exactly what these variations mean. 

Possibly, but is there a need to do anything other than use actual submitted data. It all adds up to making it virtually impossible for anyone to know precisely what and how that cost is arrived at. The majority of customers are not energy auditors from Ofgem or wherever.

True.....but fractions of a penny the wrong way, when possibly applied to millions of customers can mean even more unwarranted profit for an energy company. Clarity is all anyone can ask for.

Mmmmmm.......I wonder if you went into a shop and purchased an item for £25.50 and noticed the next person getting it for £25, would you accept if the salesperson told you the items are sold on a some win some lose on price basis. I doubt it. Again I mention rounding errors are not possible using simple subtraction with whole numbers. 

Oh dear....I was wondering if one could approach the inland revenue with that approach. "Sorry but this year I will be paying a bit less, as I have rounded you down"......;-))))

You are right.....but that is on their side, you cannot say it to them....also they wouldn't round up or down whole numbers and end up with a tail of numbers after a decimal point. 

This is a good explanation Firedog thanks for your trouble. Just a small point, what I am referring to is not 80p but 0.80kWh. I can still accept that your reasoning can be applied to the anomaly. However nowhere on any bills or the OVO site does it mention how the readings are calculated using numbers after the decimal point, estimated or not.. I appreciate your taking time, I must tell you that I have asked OVO by various means, phone, email, forum but only from yourself has there  been a sensible explanation.

Another shot of meter readings…….nowhere until the UNITS USED at the bottom of the page does the decimal point figure 55.80kWh appear.

 By the way the estimated reading should not have been. This has been sorted out.

Cheers

Thanks for the response. The problem is support has not given me an answer. As an old age pensioner I think I will have passed  on before OVO responds officially  to any of my queries. Why are people being asked to look on the forum for answers? Surely OVO could give answers directly.

Thanks for your interest. If you look on the forum lots of people have had many problems trying to switch to another supplier. So I will hang fire until things calm down or OVO decide to treat all of their customers with respect.