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

Just another thought here.

First off to say that your current usage looks reasonable overall.

However even though ostensibly on the same tariff you may be seeing a difference in what you are being charged now to previously.

Although your account is still showing Superdeal with Peak, Off-Peak, and 'Heat' rates (with not that much difference between the Off-peak and Heat rates) the new meter has just 2 rates, Peak and Off-Peak.

You may need to adjust how/when you use your heating, particularly if some of the use that was on the Superdeal 'Heat' rate has now ended up in 'Peak' periods.
I have no idea at all what the Superdeal Off-peak and Heat timings might have been. Maybe there was/is a mid-day heating boost etc? If so then that may now have ended up in Peak.

You said above:

I believe the new meter is E7, with 12am-7am are the off-peak times.

If that's correct then any use outside of those times will be being charged as Peak.

It's something that you will need to evaluate over time, which will be easier to do once things have settled down with your account.
Having half-hourly smart readings available would be a big help there.

Hi ​@sfmoosavian 

Sorry for the confusion caused since the change of meter. I can see some incredibly helpful responses here and I’m happy to see the level of accurate assistance being provided by our Plan Zero Heroes.

Please note, the Usage graphs will not show monthly and yearly data yet, as the meter is so new. You'll currently be able to view the Daily usage back to the date the meter was installed. It would be a great idea to contact our Support Team to ask them to check whether you are definitely on the correct tariff for your heating set up. 

If you contact Support, you will automatically go through to a dedicated team of great Advisors who are specifically trained in these more unique installations such as RTS. Get in touch when you can - they’re a lovely bunch and will be able to shed light on all of this for you.

​@Nukecad Thanks a lot. 

Oops. your did it again - your MPAN is on that last screenshot.

Damn :) Apparently a moderator has removed it. 
 

You may need to adjust how/when you use your heating, particularly if some of the use that was on the Superdeal 'Heat' rate has now ended up in 'Peak' periods

I totally understand but I am out of home most of the day and I just return to sleep and use the heater for like 2 hours per day, mostly during off-peak time. 

Some days the balance will increase by a bit more, some days by a bit less, but I wouldn’t say that £16.03 in 3-days looks too unusual with that usage and that tariff (particularly in the cold weather we have just had).

This is very unusual in the following sense: £16.3 was something I was using half into the billing period while now it has just taken three days! My highest charge has been £72. With this rate, I would pay roughly ​​​​​​£160, which is more than twice I was used to pay. This is highly unusual regarding that my usage pattern has not changed compared to a month ago.

Hi ​@Ben_OVO, Thanks for the comment.

 It would be a great idea to contact our Support Team to ask them to check whether you are definitely on the correct tariff for your heating set up. 

I have already opened a complaint and I am waiting for the result. If it didn’t solve the issue, I would contact you again. 

In the five days covered by the meter readings you shared, you used 36 kWh during peak hours and 51 kWh offpeak. That is pretty normal for a property suitable for Economy 7 pricing. However, your Plan page is showing Superdeal rates, not E7 ones. Please look at the billing details page to see what rates you’re actually being charged at. I’ll go one stage further than Nukecad and see what those five days’ consumption should have cost:

Superdeal

36 x £0.2866 x 1.05 = £10.83
51 x £0.2185 x 1.05 = £11.70
 5 x £0.6747 x 1.05 = £ 3.54 
Total   £ 26.07
£26.07 / 5 = £5.21/day or about £159 per month on average.

Economy 7

36 x £0.2779 x 1.05 = £10.50
51 x £0.1863 x 1.05 = £ 9.98
 5 x £0.6747 x 1.05 = £ 3.54 
Total   £ 24.02
£24.02 / 5 = £ 4.80/day or about £146 per month on average.

These are the quoted prices for the Southern England region, paying on receipt of bill. If you were to pay by Direct Debit, your Economy 7 calculation would look like this:

Economy 7

36 x £0.2645 x 1.05 = £10.00
51 x £0.1764 x 1.05 = £ 9.45
 5 x £0.6140 x 1.05 = £  3.22
Total   £ 22.67
£24.02 / 5 = £ 4.53/day or about £138 per month on average.

If you’re not paying Economy 7 rates, you should insist on that being changed. The big difference between E7 and Superdeal is that you pay for energy according to when you use it, not what you use it for.

Now, you claim that this is much more than you were paying previously. You would have to check your bills from September to December to see how much electricity (in kWh) you were using at the peak and (two not very different) offpeak rates. It sounds as if some of what you used to get at cheap rate is now being charged at the peak rate. This might include: 

• Electric shower, the most power-hungry appliance you have, perhaps 9-10 kW.  It could be costing you 50p per shower, perhaps £15 a month. If you could shift this to offpeak times (e.g. before 07:00), that would shrink by a third.
• Any electric heaters other than night storage heaters. These would normally be wired to the heating circuit and charged at the heating rate. Now, they will be charged at peak rate if they’re run during peak hours. 
• Water heater. Some people leave their immersion heater on all the time, which is usually very wasteful regardless of the rate being paid. It would normally take a water heater a couple of hours during the night to bring the temperature up to where you want it to be, and a reasonably lagged tank will stay hot enough for at least a day’s consumption. 
• Heated towel rail - you didn’t mention this, but it’s common to have some sort of heating in the bathroom, because it’s isolated from the rest of the dwelling. It may not be power-greedy, but again, some people leave it on all the time. That can quickly become expensive. If you have an early-morning shower and don’t like the transition from warm bed to icy bathroom, you could turn on the towel rail at bedtime and remember to switch it off again after your shower. That would mostly run at the offpeak rate and cost perhaps 15p a night. 

The first three things alone could help account for the difference you’re seeing in costs. 

We’re all cost-conscious, so reducing your bills by 5-6% by electing to pay by Direct Debit seems an obvious step. Then, a few minor changes in behaviour could make a big difference. 

We can’t really say any more unless we can see how much electricity you were using before the meter exchange. It’s the kWh that count, not the costs, when trying to make comparisons.
  

​@Firedog Thanks for all the details.

To be honest, I do not care about £10-20 pounds difference compared to the past but the price is literally doubled and even more. I am not OK with that. There is something going on.

I remember the person who installed the new meter told me that something like “wires are thin (or something similar). You might wanna tell the landlord/renting agency but probably they are not going to do anything about it”. I am wondering whether this has anything to do with the issue.

One point regarding your computation. It is not for five days. It is just three days. Let’s consider your E7 computation. Then, it is £24.02/3=£8.007, which is pretty high. Don’t you think increasing from £70-80 per month to £146 per month while nothing (literally nothing) has changed is very weird and unusual?

If you’re not paying Economy 7 rates, you should insist on that being changed.

I am not sure on which plan I am. The website shows superdeal. I am wondering why it is so difficult to update a website. We are not living in the stone age!

The first three things alone could help account for the difference you’re seeing in costs.

All of these were in place before. As I said, nothing has changed and I do not have heated towel rail.

We can’t really say any more unless we can see how much electricity you were using before the meter exchange. It’s the kWh that count, not the costs, when trying to make comparisons.

This is as far as it goes. I do not have access to previous months.

I found these billings though

Sep 13th - Oct 12th

Oct 13th - Nov 12th

Nov 13th - Dec 12th

All of these were with the previous meter. Now, the new meter

Dec 13th - Jan 12th

I understand part of this as I had to pay £72 from the previous month. You can clearly see the sudden increase. I believe

On Peak-Time tarrif has changed from 20.97p to 28.85

Off Peak time tarrif has changed from 18.66o to 21.85.

If what I understand is correct, then OVO should explain to my why they told me the tariff of off-peak and on-peak time will not change. I ask this explicitly when I talked to their agent. They have probably recorded the call and have it. 

And one last point!

I just arrived home; 2.24 am in the morning; nothing was on from 12pm of the previous day (i.e. more than 14 hours!!!) and I already have used £1.10 pounds today, i.e in just 2 hours and 24 minutes. Literally nothing was on except the fridge as usual!!!

Some update. Still nothing is on and it is keep increasing

​@Ben_OVO ​@Nukecad Based on what I posted above, is my understanding correct that

On Peak-Time tarrif has changed from 20.97p to 28.85

Off Peak time tarrif has changed from 18.66o to 21.85?

Looking at those bills for the old meter.

Did you have seperate meters for the ‘Heating’ circuit and the Peak/Off-peak general circuit?

Your screenshots there are only showing ‘Heating meter readings’ - where are the Peak and Off-Peak meterings for those dates?

You appear to be comparing only one out of 3 Superdeal* rates (Heati, Peak, Off-peak) to the total of  both of the new Peak/Off-peak rates.

If you do that then of course it’s going to be different because the first one was not your total use but only the dedicated heating circuit.

*The rates shown on your Dec-Jan billing are indeed the same Superdeal rates shown on your ‘Plan’ page.
You should contact support to get that changed to E7 if that is what you signed up for with the new meter.

No, that isn’t correct.

There was a tariff change/increase at the start of October, but what you are doing there is trying to compare the Superdeal ‘Heating’ rates before the increases to the Peak and Off-Peak rates after the increases.

All 3 are different rates.

Hi again ​@sfmoosavian 

There was a tariff change/increase at the start of October, but what you are doing there is trying to compare the Superdeal ‘Heating’ rates before the increases to the Peak and Off-Peak rates after the increases.

This is true and, if you’re on the standard variable plan, the rates also increased as of this month following the UK Government’s amendment to the Variable Price Cap. If you’ve logged a complaint on the account, then you’ll have a dedicated Complaints Handler. They’ll be part of the specialist team I mentioned that deal with multi-rate meters. Make sure to ask them about tariffs, ask whether your peak / off peak timings are correct, and ask if there is a cheaper tariff available. They will be able to answer all of this for you, and make sure everything’s set up correctly. They won’t close the complaint until you, as our customer, are satisfied.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the screenshots, which explain a lot.

As Nukecad points out, the reason your earlier (prior to meter exchange) bills were so low in comparison to subsequent ones is that they appear not to have billed for the other meter, the non-RTS controlled one which should have had two registers for peak and offpeak usage, the offpeak one recording everything that passed through it during offpeak hours. This would have been everything not on the RTS-controlled heating circuit, so it might not have amounted to much - just background stuff like the fridge and whatever else is running overnight (assuming that the water heater was on the heating circuit). When they discover this, you should expect an uncomfortable extra bill - sorry!

Your meter readings show that this month at least you’re using almost half (43/92) of your energy during offpeak hours. I’d frankly expect this proportion to be higher since you apparently don’t use much heavy-duty stuff during the day - unless it’s that pesky shower. In any event, once they re-bill you using the Economy 7 tariff you say you signed up for, the monthly cost should come down from its current Superdeal level.  Do you have a confirmation letter or email specifying the plan you were put on after the meter exchange?

You questioned my computation about five days’ usage. I used the readings for the five-day period  11 to 16 January, so I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with. You’ll find it more helpful in general always to examine the draw (in kW) and usage (in kWh) figures instead of focusing on the costs you see on the IHD; these are just a guide and can’t be relied on for various reasons. For example, looking at the IHD at 2am will show you the cost inclusive of the whole day’s standing charge, which will be added at midnight or soon after. That would account for £0.71 of the £1.10 you recorded. Get into the habit of touching the Now button to see both the instantaneous draw in kW and what it would cost if it persisted for an hour.

The ‘thin wires’ the installer mentioned won’t have any bearing at all on your usage or bills. They were probably ‘up to code’ when the old meters were originally installed, but regulations have changed since then. So long as no new power-hungry equipment has since been installed, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. The landlord will probably have to pay to have them upgraded when he next commissions an EICR, which he’s bound to do every five years.   

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. Just make sure OVO aren’t still charging you Superdeal rates when you no longer have the meters to match. You don’t have to pay anything until they send you a bill, although you might want to make sure you’ve got £150 handy for each month until they do. Billing errors can take weeks to sort out.

​@Nukecad Thanks. The screenshots is all that is available on the website. I do not have any extra information so I was just saying based on the prices I see. In any case, the total amount of my bills in the three billing periods with the previous meter has been

Sep 13th - Oct 12th: £57

Oct 13th - Nov 12th: £68 

Nov 13th - Dec 12th: £72

Note that this is the total amount I have paid. I am not sure what how much of this is for peak/off-peak/heating. 

​@Ben_OVO Thanks, I will do. Still waiting for the result of the complaint. 

​@Firedog Thank you. 

As Nukecad points out, the reason your earlier (prior to meter exchange) bills were so low in comparison to subsequent ones is that they appear not to have billed for the other meter ...

I have stated the total amount I have paid for the previous months above (in this thread). As you can see, the total prices had been pretty normal. What is happening now is that these prices are getting doubled in the course of a month right after the installation of the new meter. It is pretty clear something is going on. Either there is some hidden energy-hungry device somewhere or my habit of using energy has dramatically changed in the course of a month. Although the weather is much colder, I do not use more energy and I am out for most of the day.
 

Your meter readings show that this month at least you’re using almost half (43/92) of your energy during offpeak hours. I’d frankly expect this proportion to be higher since you apparently don’t use much heavy-duty stuff during the day - unless it’s that pesky shower.

True. Actually I am out for the most of a day, and take a shower per day, usually during the peak times. I am not sure how much it was costing before but I see on IHD that it costs £0.4 for each shower now. 

You questioned my computation about five days’ usage. I used the readings for the five-day period  11 to 16 January, so I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with. 

You are right. I thought you we computing from the beginning of the new billing period which is Jan 13th. 

For example, looking at the IHD at 2am will show you the cost inclusive of the whole day’s standing charge, which will be added at midnight or soon after. That would account for £0.71 of the £1.10 you recorded. Get into the habit of touching the Now button to see both the instantaneous draw in kW and what it would cost if it persisted for an hour.

Ok, this sounds helpful. I will update once I get home tonight. 

The ‘thin wires’ the installer mentioned won’t have any bearing at all on your usage or bills.

Another very helpful point. I was always thinking this may be the issue.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. Just make sure OVO aren’t still charging you Superdeal rates when you no longer have the meters to match. You don’t have to pay anything until they send you a bill, although you might want to make sure you’ve got £150 handy for each month until they do. Billing errors can take weeks to sort out.

No problem at all. It is always better to have the accurate information even if they are bad news. I have filled a complaint and still waiting for the result. Once I hear back, I will call then and ask about the rates, whether they are superdeal or E7.