Why is my Future Annual Consumption estimate so persistently high?

For clarity my angst is directed at OVO’s method of calculation and the limits imposed by their systems.

I appreciate ​@Firedog  giving out this information and helping us all understand a little bit more about how this algorithm works.

I’m sure in 12 months time the FAC will have stabilised, however knowing why, does not solve the problem.

OVO have my usage information from 2019 when we were moved over from SSE when we were locked in for the first 12 months with fixed DD that put me over £900 in credit.

Once those 12 months were up I more or less set the DD myself to keep the balance sensible but now that is not possible.

The minimum I can pay today is 60% more than I was paying this time last year.

I would have no issue if the algorithm recommended an amount which as a customer in good standing I could adjust, given that I have a clear vision of any changes that might affect my consumption:

Boiler explodes? - get the electric fires back down from the attic.
Going in a cruise? - shut everything off for a month.
Junior gives you a hot tub? - the gift that keeps on taking :(

Alternatively - now here’s a radical idea - why can’t OVO use the data from the smart meter to charge for the energy we use, every month, by Direct Debit, like normal companies.

I did ask - but apparently OVO cannot do this.

As I refused to change my DD to their inflated amount, OVO cancelled my DD and moved me to demand billing so I can’t access that data.

It does show how OVO expects my consumption to increase over the winter and I’m certain that it’s this assumption that is throwing everything off.

 

For anyone else in this hole, yes - OVO can send you a bill, currently quarterly but I hear they are moving everyone over to monthly soon.

Problems solved? Not really.

Apart from the dire warnings about the consequences of missing a payment (immediately sent to collections) they omitted to inform me that my unit cost would increase by 5.6% and the standing charge by 13.8% - fair enough.

Oh yeah, since they cancelled my Direct Debit, I get a daily call from a call center wanting to speak to me about my OVO account and asking me security questions.

Given this is a cold call from number flagged as suspicious online I have so far refused to provide any information, but when I spoke to OVO yesterday, they confirmed that 0117 374 6078 is the number used by “collections”
 

I’m afraid you’re not making it easy for anyone to help you or make reasonable suggestions. Having the Direct Debit cancelled would have moved you on to the On Demand tariff, which as you discovered is significantly more expensive. The typical consumer using 5400 kWh a year would see a difference of £108 for the satisfaction of not having to pay by Direct Debit. All of OVO’s tariffs are laid out on the Our prices page.

“… OVO expects my consumption to increase over the winter and I’m certain that it’s this assumption that is throwing everything off.” Wrong. OVO simply shows how the typical household’s usage varies month by month. Yours isn’t typical, so your costs won’t vary in the same way. This doesn’t affect how the cost for a whole year is estimated. I specified in my last reply the factors that do affect this estimate. The meter readings I suggested you find would have made it possible to reconstruct the estimate you’re seeing.

Not engaging with OVO’s collections department isn’t likely to make life any easier for you.  

If you’re not prepared to play according to your supplier’s rules, you should perhaps consider switching to a supplier that you find more amenable.

​@gtg it could be the case that the figures held within our systems for your Annual Consumption (EAC) are incorrect.

My advice here is to contact the Support Team and request that they use the Annual Consumption Calculator (an internal tool we use) to manually calculate your EAC. They can then enter your tariff rates into this tool, and it will tell them how much your Direct Debit needs to be. If the EAC held within our systems is wrong, they can amend your Direct Debit to what it needs to be, and also raise a case to our Settlements back office to get the EAC updated.

Let us know how you get on!

Left OVO yesterday because they absolutely refused to listen and insisted they would not lower my direct debit below £420 a month from the current £450

I explained repeatedly that this was based on last winter consumption which included using storage heaters which were removed over the summer.

I then got a random lecture about they decide my amount, why was I struggling to pay my bills (I’m not) and if I try to change suppliers I will have to pass a credit check. Since when did an energy company get to dictate the amount they take and you become a cash machine for them 

I’m sorry to hear this. By my reckoning, the online temporary reduction would have brought your DD down below £420 - did you not try this?

​@Firedog I have been in this property for 29 years, never switched supplier, always submitted readings on time, never missed a payment and always been in credit.

OVO replaced my "expired" traditional meter over the summer, possibly explaining why none of the information requested was visible in my account and possibly resetting the forecast model.

It would make sense if my higher than normal summer use was used as the starting point of the typical annual consumption curve while the algorithm was is it’s 12 month “learning” mode.

I'm not sure if the erroneous involvement of "collections" for which OVO have now apologised (thank you) triggered something, but at the weekend, my minimum Direct Debit jumped from £215 to £255 even though my September bill came in, as I expected, at less than half of that amount and FAC was indeed slowly dropping.

Since it is no longer possible to set your Direct Debit below the suggested minimum online – that gives me a problem, if the game is - OVO picks a number and I hold out my wallet - nope - I'm not playing.

​@Ben_OVO  A customer shouldn't need intimate knowledge of the internal workings used to drive your forecast model, although since I became aware of EAC on here and found the value for Future Energy Consumption shown in my Plan to be much higher than expected, I have called in to discuss this anomaly so either agents don't know about this yet or if they do, don't have a process to deal issues around it.

Anyway - in my view OVO have no excuse, after 6 years, for not understanding my usage pattern, it should, by now, just work, and since it clearly doesn't - I'm voting with me feet.

As of today I am also no longer a customer of OVO energy.

For anyone puzzled about how 29 years became 6 years - 3.5 million customer were moved from SSE to OVO in 2019…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49686218
 

If you had mentioned the recent meter exchange earlier, I’d have been able to tell you that while the EAC calculation is normally based on historical usage data, installing a new meter does indeed reset the estimate. This happened to me a couple of years ago, and it was many months before I eventually learnt this sad fact. My EAC was summarily set to the consumption of a typical household, about three times my actual annual consumption. 

I hope you’ve done your sums carefully to ensure you’re going to be better off with your new supplier. I wonder if they’ll be as hidebound by national rules as OVO seem to be.

Sorry, the significance of the meter change didn’t occur to me until today, given I didn’t ask for it and I assumed that OVO, as custodian of my years of consumption data, would apply some sort of continuance.

• To "carry forward consumption data for billing" involves collecting historical or ongoing data, often from smart meters, to accurately bill for services like energy or water. For a business, this means having a system to access and share meter reads between wholesalers and retailers. Consumers typically need to provide regular manual readings or have smart meters installed to ensure their consumption data is accurate and prevent estimated, and potentially inaccurate, bills. 

• Key steps to ensure accurate billing:
• Install Smart Meters: These provide automatic, accurate readings and eliminate the need for manual submissions.
• Provide Regular Readings: If you don't have a smart meter, submit readings as frequently as possible (e.g., quarterly).
• Monitor Your Usage: Use the data available (often via your online portal) to understand your consumption patterns and identify potential savings.
• Report Issues: If your estimated annual consumption figures are incorrect, contact your supplier, who can use your recent readings to create a more accurate short-term figure.

I did all of the above.

The thing that breaks this is the customers inability to set a sensible payment level. If the system had suggested £215 and I had been able to drop that down to £120 I would still be here. From memory it used to give dire warnings about the consequences of not paying enough but has morphed into “computer says no”.