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I have SMETS2 Landis+Gyr meters and IHD - why is my costs, budget and prices wrong on the In Home Display after joining SSE?

  • 21 October 2020
  • 10 replies
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I have just had  a smart meter installed, but am not quite sure how it is working things out yet. I have set a budget of £30 per month for both gas and electricity. 

 

Its currently around 4pm, and is showing 68p for electricity used and 69p for gas used. But both are showing in red as over budget. Why is this, if my budget is £30 per month, or £1 per day?

 

Even allowing for the standing charge if 23.94p per day, that’s still not hit £1 yet. 

I would expect the figure to include the standing charge though? ie at midnight it reverts to 23.94p rather than 0.00?

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Best answer by Tim_OVO 26 October 2020, 15:42

The tariffs on the Smart Meter are showing the correct unit rates, but the incorrect standing charges.  (I have double checked this by logging in to my account online.)

 

It does look as though that is only part of the issue. For example, I have the gas budget set to £45 a month, and it is currently showing usage of 95p, but showing as over budget. And that 95p includes the standing charge. If the budget is £45 a month that’s about £1.50 a day, so not sure why it is showing as over budget at only 95p?

 

Thanks for confirming this, @Iain71 

 

The budget on your In Home Display will be determined by how the budget is set (how low or high), your prices (unit rates and standing charges), and your usage (picked up via smart meter readings via the HAN). 

 

As you mentioned, your standing chargers are wrong, so this is the main suspect in your case. Reach out to SSE’s Support team for them to get this checked and amended, and nip back here to let us know the results please!

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Tim_OVO
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Thanks for posting, @Iain71 

 

This will be a great topic to get the best advice on the type of In Home Display you have. So let’s start with some questions, and then get you some answers!

 

First off, I am assuming you have an Aclara (SMETS2) smart meter?

 

Do you have an IHD6 with it? Can you send a picture? Or just look at the picture on this SMETS2 IHD guide 

 

How recently have you had the smart meters installed? 

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I have attached photos here. I have a different IHD. Looking at it again, I noticed that the tariffs have the wrong standing charge for my account. 36.93p instead of 27.35p for the gas, and 34.7p instead of 23.94p for the electricity.

Playing around with the budget, it looks as though it is double counting the standing charge. So for example if the gas has used £1.03 for the day, and the budget is set to £42 a month, that’s where it tips over to over budget. 
 

 

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So a budget of £42 would be about £1.40 a day. And £1.40 minus the reading of £1.03 is very close to that standing charge figure of 36.93p. But first thing in the morning the amount for the day is at 40p, which I assume is the standing charge reset at midnight.

 

In my mind I had assumed if I set a budget of £30 per month, it should tip over to “over budget” when the daily amount goes over £1, which it is not currently doing. 
 

I have tried it with the seasonal adjustment toggled on and off.

Tim_OVO
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Thanks @Iain71 - some great info here!

 

From those pictures I can see it’s a SMETS2 smart meter for the electricity, and gas. 

 

Tagging in these members who have the same meter type. @guycuthbert @leonsmith @Bar58 what is the best way for @Iain71 to check the tariff on the meter? I think the tariff loaded onto the meter is wrong but it’s worth checking first….

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Tim_OVO
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@Iain71 I can see you mentioned the standing charge prices being wrong. This is the likely reason why the budget and costs are out. 

 

My understanding is that the smart meter is loaded with the correct tariff when the new supplier (us in this case) takes over meter shortly after your supply start date. Is this correct @Transparent ?

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@Iain71 I can see you mentioned the standing charge prices being wrong. This is the likely reason why the budget and costs are out. 

 

My understanding is that the smart meter is loaded with the correct tariff when the new supplier (us in this case) takes over meter shortly after your supply start date. Is this correct @Transparent ?

 

I moved in here at the start of August, and had Scottish Power initially, but have now switched to SSE. So that switch has, to my knowledge, all happened as I have started paying SSE. The tariffs on the Smart Meter are showing the correct unit rates, but the incorrect standing charges.  (I have double checked this by logging in to my account online.)

 

It does look as though that is only part of the issue. For example, I have the gas budget set to £45 a month, and it is currently showing usage of 95p, but showing as over budget. And that 95p includes the standing charge. If the budget is £45 a month that’s about £1.50 a day, so not sure why it is showing as over budget at only 95p?

Tim_OVO
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Userlevel 7

The tariffs on the Smart Meter are showing the correct unit rates, but the incorrect standing charges.  (I have double checked this by logging in to my account online.)

 

It does look as though that is only part of the issue. For example, I have the gas budget set to £45 a month, and it is currently showing usage of 95p, but showing as over budget. And that 95p includes the standing charge. If the budget is £45 a month that’s about £1.50 a day, so not sure why it is showing as over budget at only 95p?

 

Thanks for confirming this, @Iain71 

 

The budget on your In Home Display will be determined by how the budget is set (how low or high), your prices (unit rates and standing charges), and your usage (picked up via smart meter readings via the HAN). 

 

As you mentioned, your standing chargers are wrong, so this is the main suspect in your case. Reach out to SSE’s Support team for them to get this checked and amended, and nip back here to let us know the results please!

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there!
Tim_OVO
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Userlevel 7

I’ll stick my reply above as a best answer for now, as it might help others. 

 

But this thread will stay open afterwards, and we can reassign at a later date if need be :blush:

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Just to say I spoke to CS, and they couldn’t really shed any light. They just said it might fix itself after I get my first bill. Not entirely convinced though, as surely the whole point is that the meters connect to my account…. and if they can connect to my account, they should be able to pull through the correct tariff details from the account. Its not a massive deal, its just a shame that I don’t seem to be getting the full benefit from the IHD if its not showing the correct figures.

Transparent
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Hi @Iain71 - I don’t think anyone here on the Forum has deciphered what algorithm is used to trigger the IHD to state that you are over budget.

I have always assumed it was a daily calculation, restarting at midnight, and based solely on what energy you have already used. But I have no justification for arriving at that conclusion.

It could be that the over-budget flag is triggered when the average use during the day indicates that you would be over-budget if you were to continue consumption at that rate for the rest of the day/week/month.

It could equally be that it’s calculating a rolling-average and that nothing actually gets reset at midnight.

 

I think we must conclude that this is a separate issue from your IHD not taking the daily standing charge into account.

As I understand it, when you switch Energy Supplier there is a single instance at which your tariff data is downloaded into your Communications Hub. This is only used by the IHD and there is no feedback system to provide a sanity-check if the memory locations in the Comms Hub hold incorrect data.

In your case it’s possible that the memory used to hold the standing charge figure is set at zero or holds a figure which is erroneous (and can’t be used within the calculation).

Whichever is the case it would seem that the best approach is for SSE to resend the tariff data and tell you when this has been done.

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