How is data recorded on the online graphs and tables?

Sorry to hear you’re ill ​@Nukecad, I really hope you start feeling better today and over the weekend.

I have requested an official answer internally to this and will get back to you as soon as I get an answer.

I’d be surprised if this were the case.

I know we all have ideas picked up along the way, ready to be trotted out when they seem appropriate, with no clear memory of where they came from and indeed not really knowing whether they’re even correct. One of mine is the notion that when smart electricity meters record usage data, they weigh the bucket at the end of each half-hour to see how much it’s captured. That quantity in kWh (or perhaps Wh) is then salted away along with the time-stamp (mS or even μS since 1 January 1970) at the time of recording. Those retrieving the data then make their own modifications to them before presenting them, e.g. by subtracting 30 minutes from the time-stamp or reducing the kWh figures to one or two places of decimals. 

If this idea is anything like accurate, then I can’t imagine that a smart gas meter would behave differently. It can’t possibly know what volume of gas has passed through it in any half-hour period until that period is over, so it would be to some minds illogical to assign a time-stamp to that volume different from the actual time of recording. 

There are standards laid down in SMETS2 that dictate the precision of clocks within meters and how far they may be allowed to deviate from the one in the comms hub. I think it’s 10 seconds, although if the deviation reaches that, all that happens is that an entry is made in the event log, waiting for some curious tech back at the mothership to notice it.

We really need a metering expert to answer these pressing questions. Let’s hope Ben reaches one.

Sorry to hear you’re not well. It’s probably just Covid, so get well soon 🍇

I do hope that you will soon feel better.

However, my 3 day experiment appears to support your theory regarding data transmission of gas (See image attached showing screen shots for three successive days and how I changed the set up for boiler usage each day.)

When a similar “Free energy” initiative was offered for electricity, it made sense to ask customers to pick slots that were specifically chosen to be outside of “peak usage” times.

Is that really necessary for gas? The cost if gas to customers does not vary throughout the day. Perhaps picking a day rather than a slot when you will be credited for the cost of 10 kWh of gas would be simpler to administer?

In common with the electricity initiative, it appears that one day is during the week while the other is at the weekend (I suspect Sunday will be the norm) will be the choices to allow those who use more energy at weekend than during the week to benefit most easily.

For a MAXIMUM saving of 63p per week per customer, it seems a rather cumbersome vehicle. Doing it this way will also stop data nerds like me (I have recorded every single day of my electricity and gas usage since my meters were installed in September 2023) from being “rather angry” when my meter fails to send data in specific slots. OVO probably has numerous diagrams that I have sent them over the years regarding problems about this. 

Whilst I agree that the data cannot be available until the end of the period, you do have to remember that we are talking about the presenting of the data to customers.
In which case “This is what you used between ##.00 and ##.30” is the most logical way of presenting it.

It doesn’t alter the fact that there is an offset berween the meters half-hour ‘data-periods’ and the half-hour clock time.

(I’m trying to be careful with terminology and distinguish betweed ‘data-periods’ and ‘clock time’).

So the data recorded at the end of a period is attributed to the clock timeslot at the start of that period.

It happens because with gas smart metering there is a 30 minute granularity of data transmission to the comms hub.
(With electricity smart metering the granularity is 10-15 seconds, so not that significant).

The testing that ​@Bendog has done clearly supports/shows that some gas usage goes indeed get recorded in the previous timeslot to when it was used.

How much will depend on just how much your particular meter’s data-period is offset to the clock half hour.
Each meter will have a different offset, which I believe is set by the time it was comissioned in relation to the clock half-hour.
My own gas meter has about a 6 minute offset, Bendog’s gas meter’s offset is obviously much larger.

PS. It would be nice to come up with a quick, simple way of determining the exact offset for each meter, but with the 30 minute granularity any reasonablr test I can currently think of is going to take hours if not days.

That mirrors my own thinking.

Gas is the same price all day, there are no Peak or Off-peak timings for gas.

So having a scheme/promotion for free gas use in Off-peak periods is somewhat of an odd notion.

In my opinion it shows two things:

1. Firstly it shows that the Beyond team have not thought things through and just tried to jigger the free electricity offer to gas without realy understanding the differences in tariffs and metering. (OK the metering offset isn’t that well known, but still).
   Probably because:
2. Supplying gas is a secondary consideration at OVO. (Fair play though, it was considered for this new offer).

PS. This potentially large problem for the “A little help’ scheme, that is the metering offset issue, has been raised with the responsible team at Beyond and we are awaiting their reply.
As it’s now weekend we probably wont hear from them until Monday/Tuesday at least.

I do have an easily implemented and workable solution for them that would suit everybody.
Again Bendog has seen the same solution and touched on it above.

OK it would leave some embarassed faces at Beyond, however as the issue has already been noticed and raised then I expect there is growing embarassment there already.
Better to come clean, than trying to fudge now and probably make things worse.

The Solution:
Simply treat everyone who has signed up the same as electricity only customers, in other words:-
Give everyone who chooses a weekly timeslot the maximum 63p for that timeslot regardless of their actual gas usage.

TBH that was another flaw of the scheme, one that again shows gas being second fiddle at OVO.
Although ostensibly aimed at helping gas customers they would struggle to reach their maximum reward, and of on a fixed tariff would get less than 63p even if they did meet mayimum.
By contrast electricity only custoners automatically get the maximum 63p for simply tapping a couple of buttons.

​@Bendog 

If you havent already then I suggest that you now narrow down your testing by starting the heating at 9.20 and 9.25.
The idea being to see at what point usage stops being recorded in the 8.30-9.00 timeslot.

Once you have narrowed it to 5 minutes then you can take it further and do minute by minute.
From your numbers posted I would expect it to be 9.23 or 9.24.
I’m sure you can follow this (4.94-1.85) / 15 = 0.206 per min and then 4.94 / 0.206 = 23.98 mins

If like me you have a manual flip-the-arm timer that can only be set in 15 minute steps then you can still set the clock itself in 1-minute intervals to achieve the same effect.
eg setting an 'on' time of 9.00 but setting the timer clock a minute slow will mean that the actual time the gas comes on will be 9.01, and so on.

PS Why your chart is showing dashes in the 10:30 pm and 11:00 pm timeslots I have no idea.
I assume that you have looked back to see when it started?

Is it really necessary to pick a time slot? The wonderful get-out clause about not getting any credit if the meter fails to send data could also be avoided. As you can see from my experimental data, on two out of three days, it appears that my meter failed to send data in the 10.30pm and 11pm slots. That is, I feel, a little worrying.

The actual description of this initiative reads like it was done by just replacing the word “electricity” with “gas” from the same electricity one. It could even have been produced by AI. 

Unfortunately, this initiative is supposed to start soon. I hope OVO can be persuaded to take on board the problems that I have experienced and react to them.

I don’t see them going for just “Sign up and we’ll give you a 63p credit each week”.

You have to pick/do something otherwise they might just as well give an immedate £6.30 credit to anyone who signs up.

Of course there is also a plan ‘C’.
As there have been no actual timeslots yet they could Cancel the promotion, giving anyone who already picked a slot a 63p credit for it, and think about a different promotion.

That is why I suggested that picking a day rather than a time slot would work. For instance, the first slot I have signed up to is Wednesday 5th November between 9pm and 11pm. In reality, any time on Wednesday would be OK. 

We are using Hive to control our heating and hot water and I am not sure that we have anything other than being able to pick 15 minute time slots. The missing data does not happen every day. However, I am going to look back to see how often and when it does happen.

Regarding my missing data slots for my gas usage. I have not bothered to record them in the same way as I have my electricity usage (i.e. every slot for every day since our meters were installed) because I have an electric kiln that I use for firing glass and needed to know how much each different firing program costs. However, I have just looked at what data is being sent (and not sent) from October 1st - 30th as the data for yesterday is not available until much later in the day. As you can see, it is pretty inconsistent and on some days no half hour data is available although total usage and cost is available for those days on the Month tab.