Why is my Future Annual Consumption estimate so persistently high?

A quick update: my FAC took another lurch on Sunday, this time downwards again. The total is again in line with earlier figures, waning slowly from 2700 in November towards the actual usage of around 1050 in mid-August. Here are the last four FACs: 
  

I wish I knew what they were up to (1766 > 1730 > 1997 > 1620?); it’s clear that the formula I was given isn’t being applied. At least my annual projected energy cost is currently only overestimated by 27%, because half of mine is the standing charge which the FAC luckily can’t mess with. 

Hey @Firedog & @Nukecad, 

I know this has been an ongoing issue for some time now so I have raised this internally so we can try and better understand what is causing this for you. Would you both mind dropping me a message with your account numbers so that I have them to hand? 

I will work on trying to get more information for you 🙂  

Thanks, Chris. I’ve PM’ed you.

I’m well aware that multi-rate accounts are a pain in this respect; I read somewhere that their FACs are only updated weekly (as opposed to daily?), and that ties in with my experience (a new FAC every Sunday) apart from a few outliers. The problem is that the normal adjustment {[time from start x meter advance from start] + [EAC x (one year - time from start)]} has to be done for each register if it’s to make any sense at all. I think the latest adjustments have been done on my account to try and compensate for this, by keeping the overall FAC in line with the target while setting the offpeak figure at a more reasonable level at the expense of the peak one. 

I’m sure it’s possible to devise a more equitable system! 

@Firedog I also mentioned your particular yo-yo’ing FAC to the Forum Support who are (supposedly) looking into the issue of inflated/balloning FACs for me by PMs.

@ChristopherS_OVO as I say there I’m already talking by PM to Forum Support about these FAC issues, they already have my account details.
PS. My own FAC is now reasonable, but it has been vastly inflated in the past, and it has also made sudden jumps (doubling at the end of February) in the past - I am not multi-rate, I’m currently on the Fixed Loyalty tariff since December.

Hey @Firedog,

I’m glad you have had the opportunity to review the data and that it has helped you understand the calculations a little better. 

The only thing I would add is the part that you mentioned about manual intervention. I’ve asked about this and the team have petitioned this with Kaluza but it currently isn’t something they can intervene with. They are aware of the need to try and address this when we know there is an imbalance in the calculations. There are some occasions where the imbalance is necessary such as a meter exchange as the system would in a way treat this as a “fresh start” but you would typically see things like your DD fall naturally over time with the new readings scheduled. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and findings with the new data 🙂

As I see it the problem with making manual interventions is that the automatic system would probably just put them back to being wrong again the next time it ran.
So it would end up in an ongoing person vs machine battle to keep things right.

My own conversations with  Forum Support so far tend to agree that there is something out of kilter with the EAC and AQ calculations ‘further down the line’ at Kazula or Xoserve (for gas).
Personally I suspect that such calcuation glitches for certain circumstances may be pretty long standing but didn’t previously show up the same in traditional billing as it now does with OVO’s live billing.

PS. I haven’t reported here on the forum much of my converstaion with FS, partly because there is nothing conclusive (as yet), and partly because I wanted to concentrate on the DD calculator here on the forum without confusing the two issues any further than they already are/were.
I say were because the DD calculator at the moment seems to have been tweaked and to be working OK for Fixed Tariffs, so hopefully that’s also the same for Variable Tariffs, and hopefully meaning that any oddities left in there now are probably due to FACs.

You’re quite right, of course. However, it’s a strange ‘automated’ system that can take leaps like my 1766 > 1730 > 1997 > 1620. I suppose someone might have found some numbers down the back of the sofa.

FWIW the calculator has always worked as designed for me on the SVT. They’re not complicated calculations, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work smoothly. But the fundamental significance of the FAC can make a mockery of the system when it’s out of kilter for whatever reason. I wonder if the support staff see exactly the same results in their dashboard as we see on the web - perhaps @ChristopherS_OVO could ask?

Your recent experience of seeing two different outcomes at the same time would suggest a caching delay, as if one bit had caught up before the other. I’ve seen similar oddities in other parts of this (bafflingly complex) site, that have magically come right after a few hours or days. Moral: when something looks really strange, come back a bit later and look again.

I have now had a further PM reply from Forum Support in which they say that it's the industry AQ that still has a too high figure for my actual usage, and it's that which is causing the spikes in my FAC for gas.

They further state that because of that too high industry AQ it could spike again in future, which I interpret as meaning whenever that incorrect AQ gets fed into the calculations again it will cause another spike in the FAC.
(They suggest that sending more frequent readings may help, however we already know that it does help lower the FAC but only until the next spike).

However they have finally identified why my own industry AQ has been consistently too high.
Apparently Xoserve have the wrong MSN listed for me.
So any readings sent for my actual meter are not getting to the MSN listed at Xoserve, and so not being used when (re)calculating my AQ.
Presumably the MSN that Xoserve have listed is for the new gas meter that was supposed to be fitted in my failed meter exchange last May, but never was fitted.

Support say that they have now raised a ticket to get my MSN corrected at Xoserve.

@Firedog  As your issue also appears to involve a (electricity) meter exchange then if you haven’t already you may want to check whether Elexon have your MSN correct for your electricity meter.

Additional to the above.

I’ve been thinking more about that incorrect gas meter MSN and what should happen in that situation.

if the issue in my particular case is solely that Xoserve have the wrong MSN and so are just using the 'industry standard' usage figure for the AQ then that still doesn't explain why my FAC for gas climbed to over 31,000 kWh last December.
That's way higher than the Ofgem average 7,500 kWh gas for a 1 bedroom flat.

For that reason alone I still suspect that there is something more in play here than just that incorrect MSN.

(Of course Forum Support are happy that they have found ‘something’ concrete to hang an explanation on - whether it’s the full explanation or not).

So I'll still be watching to see what happens once the MSN has been corrected.