Why has my usage doubled since my smart meter was installed?

Hey ​@MrSleepless 

Sorry to hear about this, one of our volunteers has already left some really helpful advice here about checking the meter/supply details are correct and you’re being charged for the correct meter.

Are you able to see the readings used to create this bill? If so, is that similar to that of what the gas meter reading might have been? It’s tricky to tell exactly what’s happened so we can only make best guesses. I’ve linked below to a couple of other topics which may also be helpful if the details are all correct:

If you could double check the meter/supply number details are all correct, that would be my first suggestion. Keep us updated with how you get on.

This is one of the many reasons I don’t want one!!! I’ve been hearing people get a new smart meter and then the bills increase, and you have no recourse, they’ll just say you haven’t been paying enough with your old meter, which I know isn’t true.

I’m really angry that people are being bullied into getting one when they don’t want one. Yes, they’ll say their is no obligation to have one it isn’t law (yet), but if you want better tariffs in the future it’s going to be forced upon the customer and it’s not fair. The other thing I don’t like is, if they are so great why are they now going to be changed every ten years now, it’s ridiculous!!!

My old meter is over 3 decades old, and my bills have only gone up since they used the war in Ukraine as an excuse to bump all the prices up. If it’s not accurate, then why are my bills  (especially at this time of year when I’m not using heating), always near enough the same, like within a pound or less, a month?

I don’t like all the variables with changing, plus I don’t need the hassle of getting someone out to change them, and then either cancelling on me, or saying it can’t be done (both at the same time) or some nonsense. Lots of them stop working and then it’s impossible to get someone out to repair it. The whole system is a total mess, and since I already have “dumb” meters, what is the point in my getting new meters and then they don’t give readings like they are supposed to? I also live in a semi rural area where the mobile signal has a tendency to not be strong, so there is another problem to deal with, right there.

I’d rather stay as I am and give readings every week as I do know to keep things as accurate as possible. I’m getting old now, I don’t need any more unnecessary hassle in my life!! Leaving it up to the tech that doesn’t work properly and then not checking is a recipe for disaster, this is how people getting into massive debt. For the sake of 30 seconds to take a reading I’d rather not take a chance.

This is change, for changes sake, and it’s not for the customers benefit, it’s just to keep an eye on how much energy someone is using, especially at peak times, and it’s not on. They can see I’m a low user already, why do I have to even contemplate  having to have a smart meter when it’s not even worth my while, my bills won’t be any cheaper, that’s for sure!!

If your current meter is 30 years old, it’ll be due for mandatory replacement sooner or later. The maximum known lifespan is 45 years and even that only ever applied to a couple of ancient meter models - which have recently hit End of Life themselves.

If you leave the current one in place, it will eventually become more and more inaccurate, thus slowly impacting your bills more than having a Smart Meter would.

Signal issues are not as bad as you think - OVO has several tricks to get around that one.

Living in Scotland I arranged my meter to be changed over in January.  I took a day off work and nobody from OVO turned up . Fast forward a few months and someone from OVO appeared then refused to do the job because of asbestos . Third time lucky and 3rd day off work and an engineer arrived an eventually changed my meter . A few days later a meter reader arrives and takes a reading . Just through chance I happen to go online and find that I am £3000+ in debt and my next monthly bill we be over £400 . I have never had a monthly bill over £240 before . Also looking back over all the bills I had paid they were coming up as £700 £800 £600 etc  . Now luckily enough I have all my bank statements and it turns out that my meter had someone else's number in it and obviously their details . My wife is absolutely stressed out by all this and it has caused her severe anxiety.  Absolutely disgusted with OVO . There is no way they should be allowed to treat customers like this . I am awaiting their response .

This doesn’t make much sense. Do you mean that the meter serial number (MSN) on the bills you’ve received is different from the number on the meter itself? The engineer who installed the new meter should have left a card beside it giving the MSNs of both the removed and the installed meters, along with their readings on installation day. Do these match with what you’re seeing online? 

When was the new meter installed? It can take a few weeks for everything to fall into place after a meter exchange - the usual advice is to hold off for six weeks before complaining about something not looking right. 

I'm on nights at the moment so can't check but the installer did leave a card . I'm surethe meter reader typed in the wrong details . I have lodged a complaint and am waiting on a call back . My last 12 bills online were all in the region of 200-220 quid but when I go and check them now it says I paid anything between 500 to 700 a month . It's like I have someone else's details . Either a football stadiums floodlights or a cannabis farm by the looks of things . 

Hey ​@DundeeUnited, 

Welcome to the community! 

As ​@Firedog correctly pointed out, the engineer who replaced the meter should have provided a card with the new meter's details and installation date. Since we cannot access your account via the Forum, we can only make assumptions based on the information available.

It seems there might have been an out-of-line reading during the new meter's installation, or the installation itself disrupted the billing system. These issues often resolve themselves as the meter collects more data, typically over a few weeks. If, after a few weeks, your bills remain higher than usual, please contact our Support Team to raise a dispute.

Please keep us updated on your progress 😊

Weird - although probably me just not getting how things are working with 

my smart meter!


On E10 - until last week was using roughly £4 a day, now I’ve noticed that’s increased to £7 a day and I’m not doing anything different with what I use.. Did submit a reading fairly recently..

When was your smart meter installed? Last we heard, you were stalling … If it’s less than six weeks ago, your account may not have settled down completely yet. There is usually no need to submit meter readings manually if the smart meter is working as intended. On Economy 10, there will be two readings each day, peak and offpeak.

Where are you seeing the figures of £4 and £7 a day?

Where are you at?

I'm in Cumbria - the temperature has dropped dramatically this week, my boiler is firing up more often to keep the flat warm,  and that's almost doubled my heating cost to compensate for the temperature drop.

Hey ​@mrsparkles5481 

I’m glad to see a couple of our community members have already stopped by with some helpful advice.

Nukecad raised a very good point about the temperature change recently, have you been hit with a cold spell too?

We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum so it can be tricky to tell exactly what might have caused this change. You mentioned submitting a reading recently, if the smart meter is new and not yet sending us readings, and if there hadn’t been a reading submitted for a while or regular reading submissions before this, it could have an impact on this. If we’ve been estimating usage, an update to the readings would have given us a better understanding of the average usage than previous to the reading.

Firedog asked a good question, when was your smart meter installed?

If you could give us a little more information, we’ll do our best to help further.

​@mrsparkles5481 

How did you get on?

The rates went up recently, I though I was doing quite well but the recent increase showed me I wasnt.

Forgive me, I dont mean to state the obvious.

I turned down my fridges/freezers.Anything that was on standby or even just plugged in during the day is now off at the wall.

a considereable difference, my standing charge is generally higher mon-fri tha n my usage now.

I dont know where you are but if you’re northern, PAYG might be cheaper.

It is in my area.

I’ll try and cover all the questions asked in the posts!


I’m up in the NW Highlands of Scotland (so further than Cumbria ​@Nukecad !) 


My smart meter was installed in April ​@Firedog I was stalling but eventually a space became available to make the switch - given where I live,that’s not easy,know others here where I live that are still waiting now). I  monitor what I’m using day to day and  that’s where I’m getting the figures. I was using £4 a day at the time of the meter reading, doing nothing different since then and suddenly it’s £7 a day (again,not changed anything- I don’t even put my heating on,haven’t during the cold snaps we’ve had but it’s now slightly milder).


I submitted my last meter reading late ,due to being away during the period the meter readers were due to visit ,and wasn’t sure how to do it given I was doing it with the smart meter for the first time.  So is it because I submitted late perhaps that it’s maybe estimated usage rather than what I am using? Been close to a month since it started using more despite not doing anything differently so feel out of pocket slightly.. 

(to give an idea,I was topping up every seven days,now it’s five)

To add I do have a heated radiator in my bathroom that I don’t have any idea how to switch off.. doesn’t seem to be using any extra

​@mrsparkles5481 we used to have a heated towel rail in our bathroom that heated up when the hot water tank heated - not connected to the radiator circuit. 

I think I messed up with the reading which might explain it.. 

Just got an email from the meter readers who do them in my area on behalf of OVO to submit a new one. So when I went to remind myself of how.. feel so stupid and may explain the jump.

Took it not from the meter installed in my cupboard where my old traditional one was, but from the IHD.  The IHD doesn’t give you the E10 peak/off peak readings. Oops.. cost myself a lot and  potentially explains why I’m topping up 2 days earlier every week..

​@mrsparkles5481 glad you got to the bottom of it! And apologies if it wasn’t made clear to you at the time of installation that the reads need to be taken from the meter.

Just to confirm, you shouldn’t have to be providing readings at all if you have a smart meter, as it sends the reads to us automatically. If the meter isn’t sending reads automatically then contact our Support Team, who’ll get an engineer to come and either fix or replace the meter.

You can find some helpful smart meter related articles in our Forum Library section here.

Please let us know if you have any more questions - happy to help!

Definitely wasn’t told that. Now I know.  So for the last month it’s been using way more because the reading wasn’t accurate :( Costly mistake,oops. 


I’m PAYG though so why would the meter readers send me an email saying I need to provide a reading if the smart meter is providing them automatically? Don’t think that’s the case with PAYG . 

The accuracy or otherwise of meter readings submitted by you or anyone else have no bearing on how much electricity you’re using. You are only charged for the amount passing through the meter.

I asked before where you’re seeing the £4 and £7 daily charges. If it’s from the IHD, then these are only for information and can be very wrong if, for example, the wrong tariff prices have been loaded on to the meter. You should be able to check these on the IHD itself.

Any sudden increase in daily usage (kWh, not £) is caused by something taking more power than before. An extra £3 a day is equivalent to a constant power draw of 500 W, which shouldn’t be difficult to track down. If you see ‘using now’ figures on your IHD of more than, say. 1-200 W when you’re not using anything like the kettle or microwave, you’ll have to start checking what is using the extra. That’s easily done at the Consumer Unit (“fuse box”) by flipping the breakers off in turn to see what makes a big change in the IHD’s ‘using now’ figure. It takes 10 seconds for the IHD to react to a change, so be a bit patient. 

Let us know what you find out, or if you need more detailed instructions. It would help to see a photo or two of the IHD’s ‘using now’ screen. Here’s mine just now:

​@mrsparkles5481 I didn’t realise you were PAYG, apologies.

​@Firedog is absolutely right here - if you sent in an incorrect meter reading it wouldn’t make a difference to your charges, as you’re charged on the meter, not billed as a pay-monthly customer.

You must just be using more electricity now. What sort of heating is at the property? Is it electric? Also, how do you heat up the water? Is that through electricity as well?

Bear in mind - if you have your heating set to a thermostat then, when the weather is colder, the heating will be working harder and using more energy to get the property up to temperature. 

It is electric.  And yes to the water. No to a thermostat,don’t do that.  It is properly mild here, as Storm Bram has just passed through so no need to have the heating turned up. Strangely used less yesterday (checked it at the end of the day - £5.50 for the day) - again, I’ve not done anything different or changed anything since the smart meter was installed on April 1st.  I’m using exactly the same things. 

I’m not keen on messing with the breakers (worried in case I hurt myself - yes,sounds silly but you just don’t know). Only if a fuse has tripped have I ever done that and something has gone off unexpectedly. Tariffs are correct checking the last letter I was sent when the October price cap took effect.

Have included what it is currently on my IHD to help.

​@mrsparkles5481 I live in Glasgow, so not as far north as you, but I remember in late November, when you first messaged on this thread, it was absolutely freezing here, about -5 overnight. Assuming it may have been colder further north - it is looking like your electric heating may be the culprit. Here’s a screenshot of my gas usage for November; I know you don’t have gas, but my heating is gas and you can see how my usage rose a lot during the cold snap:

One thing you could do is contact Home Energy Scotland. They’re an organisation that offer free and impartial advice on energy saving. If you contact them, they’ll hopefully be able to help you with the best ways to use your appliances, and will also let you know of any grants you might be eligible for.

What sort of heating system do you have?

Thanks. However, that screen doesn’t tell us very much at all; it’s only showing what you have spent and used since midnight, and the fact that there’s more than usual power being drawn at the moment (the amber light).

If you want to get to grips with your consumption, touch the Now button. This will tell you just how much power is being drawn at the moment. This is a snapshot figure, updated every ten seconds; this means you have to wait a moment after switching the kettle on to see just how much extra it’s drawing. If you get used to looking at power (in W or kW) and energy (in kWh) rather than pounds, you’ll soon learn to read the signs - like my kettle boosting the power draw from 19 W to 3070 W (= 3.07 kW).  

You could be right on the meter - last three top ups have not gone through automatically and ended up after a few attempts each time to input them manually on the meter ,including tonight!  I’ll raise it with the Support Team.