Why do I get estimated readings in my bill when I have a smart meter?

Why does OVO keep requesting meter reading when I have a Smart Meter?

Hi ​@Snowflame ,

The two most likely reasons are:

• Your meter hasn’t been sending readings recently
• You requested Monthly readings rather than Daily/Half-Hourly

You can fix the former via the tool at https://smart-meter-help.ovoenergy.com and the latter by talking to OVO Support to increase the read frequency OR by changing your preferences in the app.

Hey ​@Snowflame 

Blastoise has already given some very helpful advice here. I just wanted to add the following topic which you may find helpful:
 

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently switched to a smart meter with Ovo Energy, and I’m really happy with the convenience. However, I’ve noticed some discrepancies in the energy usage readings compared to my previous manual meter readings.

I’m wondering if there are any tips or steps I can take to ensure that my smart meter readings are as accurate as possible. Is there any way to reduce fluctuations or errors in data? Additionally, I’ve heard about the option to reset or calibrate smart meters does anyone know if this helps with accuracy?

Thanks!

What sort of discrepancies are you seeing? 

Smart meters provide two sets of data: the half-hourly usage figures (so long as you’ve selected the half-hourly option) and the meter readings, which will be taken daily unless you’ve selected the monthly option. The difference between two days’ readings will match the sum of the usage figures for the day to within < 2Wh. These two sets are retrieved from the meter separately once daily for most customers.

Smart meters are precision instruments, manufactured to exacting tolerances and certified to meet government requirements for accuracy. There’s not likely to be any question of the precision of the figures you’re seeing, if they’re indeed coming from the meter and not from OVO’s sometimes fanciful estimations.

Hey ​@BenColeman 

We have several topics related to this question but it depends really what discrepancies you’re referring to?
 

Do any of these resources help?

The discrepancies I’ve noticed are mostly between my manual readings (taken periodically before the switch) and the daily usage data shown in the OVO app it’s consistently about 5-8% higher now.

I didn’t realize the half-hourly vs. daily data could play a role, so that’s helpful to know. Just to clarify:

If the meter’s daily readings are accurate (as you mentioned, being precision instruments), could the difference be due to how OVO processes or estimates the data before displaying it in the app?

Or might my previous manual readings have been less precise (e.g., human error or meter aging)?

I’ll double-check if I’m on half-hourly or monthly readings in my settings. Appreciate the insight about the <2Wh tolerance that gives me a good benchmark to compare.

(If you’ve encountered this before, any tips on how to reconcile historical vs. smart meter data would be great too!)

That’s not likely, unless the old meter was well past its best-before date. If the old usage data you’re seeing are based on actual readings and not estimates, then they should be accurate to within a kWh or two because any decimals are ignored when readings are submitted manually. A reading could be 123.999 kWh, but it would be entered as 123 kWh. If the next day’s reading were 124.000, that would be entered as 124. The day’s usage would thus be recorded as 1.000 kWh, which is … errr ... 1000 times too big!

A smart meter stores readings exactly at midnight (GMT) each day. You may be able to check the reading that will eventually appear in your online account against the one available on your IHD on the dot of midnight, so long as you don’t have a split-rate tariff like Economy 7.

It might make it easier for us to spot the discrepancies you’re seeing if you could share screenshots or tabular figures - we might even be able to come up with a reasonable explanation! 

I have moved into a new place within the last 2 months (1 bed 1 bath, very small, all electric) and every time I submit a meter reading I get told they are lower than expected. 

There are two of us living here, and we are both students so we are very frugal - we never have the heating on, we always have the lights off unless it is night-time and we are not asleep, and we only turn the water heater on before our showers. 

So when we submit readings and it says 'this is lower than expected' we believed we would have lower bills as a result. However, we are frequently being charged upwards of £70 a month, more than we have ever paid in flats before this where we had gas and had flatmates who used the energy excessively.

We are sadly not eligible for a smart meter, but would like some guidance as to why our bills are so high for our usage, and any tips to reduce it (that arent 'turn off lights, dont have heating on, switch things off at plugs' - as we are already doing all that).

How often are you submitting meter readings ? 

Roughly 3 every month? It is a shared space with the bins so we submit them whenever we take the bins out.

The supplementary readings that they have estimated based on our given ones look right though, no crazy high numbers there.

Do you mean “3 months”? You’ve said you only moved in 2 months ago.

Did you open a new account with OVO  when you moved in, and was OVO the already the energy supplier?

Just to double check something here.

What readings are shown on your bill(s).

Are they the “too low” readings that you submitted? Or are the bills using “Estimated" readings because yours are considered to be too low to be true.

PS. How are you paying, is it by Direct Debit?

i mean 3 per month,  just under one a week.  OVO  was already the supplier though 

Its the peak energy use that is most of the bill - adds about £50 onto the bill. Last month I only did 2 readings and it estimated the third, which looks accurate. It said these are very low readings when I inputted them, so I assumed I would be charged less.

maybe there is something wrong with the meter readings though? like i said, we have all switches off at the plugs unless we are using them, lights turned off when there is daylight, no heating used and water heater on only just before a shower.

There’s something very strange here. The readings on the bill you shared are labelled Smart meter, yet you say you don’t have one. When you submit readings, you’re told they’re too low. It rather sounds as if there’s a meter mix-up here.

Just above that Electricity in detail section, you should see both the supply address and the Meter Serial Number (MSN). Is the address right? and does the MSN on the bill match the one on the meter itself? It might help if you posted a photo of the meter so we could see for ourselves.  

Hey ​@cwniamh 

I’m glad to see a few of our community members have already stopped by to help out here.

As Firedog mentioned, it looks like you’ve already got smart meters installed, which would explain why you’d be ineligible to have them fitted.

Would you be able to share a photo of the meter? It would be helpful to know which model it is, and if the meter serial number is correct. As Firedog also mentioned, those additional meter readings sound like they may not match the ones coming from the smart meter if they are being deemed too low, so a photo of the meter would be helpful.

It does look though as if you are being based on the smart meter readings so the billing should be accurate if it’s been based on the meter readings from the correct meter.

Do let us know how you get on.

🤦‍♀️ sorry - dyslexia rules KO 

Studying that bill your usage that you are being billed for actually seems reasonable.

You are on the Simpler Energy variable tariff - the charge per kWh is the same whather it’s peak or off-peak.
I assume that it’s being shown as peak/off-peak like that because at some time the meter has been set up for E7 or E10 tariffs; which is exactly what you would want for a flat with electric storage heaters.

I’d take an educated guess here that the the flat has electric storage heaters, and that the previous tenants were using them; probably on E7 or E10 tariff.

If they were they they would have been using a lot more electricity each month especially in winter.

That could be why when you give a reading the computer says that it looks low - because it is much lower that they have been used to seeing for that property when the previous tenants were there and using the storage heaters.

Looking at what the bill says, and ignoring for now if those are smart readings or your sent in readings.

For your billing period 18th March to 17th April you used a total of 218.894 kWh of electricity.

That doesn’t seem anything out of the ordinary to me.

It’s more than the 146.75 that I used in the equivalent period (mine’s 24th March to 23rd April) - but I’m single and there are 2 of you so I would expect you to use more.

The 2 of you are using about 1.5x the electricity that I use as a single person in a 1-bed flat (I have gas heating), which looks reasonable to me.
Indeed I would say it’s a low use for 2-people.

I’d just ignore it when it says that your readings look low.
They look low to the computer simply because that are lower than what it was used to seeing from the previous tenants.

PS. You could probably get the price per kWh down if you went for a fixed tariff, but I know that isn’t always possible in a rental if you are not expecting to be there long term.

here is a photo of the meter - i dont believe it is a smart meter?

this is helpful, thank you

That is a fine example of the very latest Aclara SMETS2 meter of the type currently being installed in their thousands. I have one just like it, and it’s worked flawlessly since it was installed in 2023. Since it appears to be sending readings regularly, there’s no need for you to bother taking readings except perhaps once a month just to check that all’s well. 

Did you not find the IHD (In-House Display) that should have come with the meter? The previous tenant should have left it behind for you. It can help a lot with identifying greedy appliances.

 There’s a wealth of information in the online account, too, so you can see just what’s been happening.

We have no IHD - and we would definitely see it as its a very small flat! 

Can they be bought or will I have to get in touch with our landlord?

Also, it says this on my account profile:

is this because i dont have an IHD?

That’d be unrelated - you can use https://smart-meter-help.ovoenergy.com to diagnose.

As for the IHD? Check this one out: