Can Energy Suppliers manipulate smart meter reading remotely?

The reply you got was incorrect.

There is no ”automatically resets for the next month” whoever said that doesn't understand properly how smart meters work.

Remember that people answering the phone to customers don't usually need training in technical stuff, only with billing/account stuff.

Generally the meter itself stores 13 months worth of readings and then the oldest stored days reading drops out as each new days usage is recorded.

​@HKT888 thanks for your post.

I’m wondering whether the readings coming through to them were from a different register on the meter, eg you were looking at the readings for ‘rate 1’ on the meter, but the company you’re with were receiving reads from the ‘total’ register. Very difficult to know what’s happened here. Please keep us updated as to how this complaint pans out.

Hi HKT888,

When I read your post it raised my suspicions that your meter is a Maximum Demand meter that is usually for businesses running machinery of reasonable size. The give away is the HH bit, which means that it reads every half hour’s maximum draw. So your highest draw in any particular half hour will dictate what your final month end bill will be. The older electromechanical versions of these meters had a needle on a dial that was driven up by the meter each half hour, then the meter would drop back to it’s zero each half hour leaving the needle where it was. So if the needle went say half way up its scale in one half hour, but only a quarter for the rest of the month, your bill would be based on that highest half hour pull.

When these meters are used in industry, I have always encouraged my industrial customers to start their big motors in stages rather than all together. That helps because when the biggest motor is up to speed and fully online, it then helps the others to get going by it’s regenerative effect. Also I encouraged them to start the first batch of motors 5 mins before the hour or half hour, then the rest 5 mins after.

If you aren’t running any biggish motors for production, I wonder why you have a Half Hour meter installed? You know what you are running better than I but I hope this info helps in some way.

I have had my smart meter at work altered to have a different total kwh reading .I asked for evidence of the following

How would I obtain the records regarding our meter . The physical KWH  reading on our meter has been altered externally so I am looking for the following data, I know it’s Logged with audit trails.

1)Tamper detection and event logging

2)Cumulative kWh reading stored inside the meter and when it was altered

3) Configuration changes

4) Data flow (DCC logs)

These are all industry related questions, OFGEM have refused to investigate because british gas complained. I would be very worried about the ability of these companies to change them because its been done to mine

The origional complaint was with British gas as the readings had been altered on the billing which was in black and white and a new total KWH  reading was put on the smart meter. I have not lost money and that was never the point. What i wanted to know was who changed the total KWH on the smart meter. I mean it must of been someone. It went from 114,216 KWH to 2768 KWH so i wanted to know who did it and how is it possible. We went from half hourly reading to a downgrade to go with British gas lite but the total KWH  it records will not be afeected . So all i wanted was thew information below , nothing difficult about the request but no one will answer

How would I obtain the records regarding our meter . The physical KWH  reading on our meter has been altered externally so I am looking for the following data, I know it’s Logged with audit trails.

1)Tamper detection and event logging

2)Cumulative kWh reading stored inside the meter and when it was altered

3) Configuration changes

4) Data flow (DCC logs)

All i get told is that it cant be altered but it has and its that simple

No it didnt reach its cycle as it was on 114,216 KWH to start. This has nothing to do with finance this has to do with someone in a company chainging a display on a smart meter which apparently cant be done but it has been done and people with smart meter should be very worried 

There doesn’t seem to be much progress with this enquiry. My first reaction would be that it must be really, really difficult to alter the contents of a smart meter’s internal memory, and it would take a specialist engineer to do were it even possible.

It is much more likely that the meter has several internal registers and the supplier is currently not looking at the same ones as before. Someone might be able to come up with suggestions if you were to post photos of the meter clear enough for the display and all the markings on the meter itself to be legible. If you’re concerned about privacy, just obscure the last three or four digits of the Meter Serial Number. None of the other markings are sensitive personal information. 

if the meter had many internal registers that still wouldnt effect the total KWH  consumption total. The total is the total, doesnt matter how they monitor it surely. The meter is a EDMI Atlas MK10D and im sure as you suggest what might of happened the electricity company would of stated that. Appreciate your input.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think there are many forumites who are familiar with AMR meters like your EDMI Atlas Mk10D. It’s used primarily in commercial settings, while OVO only serves domestic customers. We tend to assume that a ‘smart’ meter is one conforming to the SMETS and ideally connected to the SMWAN. 

I’ll bow out at this stage; if anyone here has the expertise to help you, you may be lucky.