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Why is my smart meter In home display (IHD) exceeding my daily budget? - My electricity usage seems high

  • 15 August 2021
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N
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Hi all,

I’ve just had a smart metre installed and the daily budget for both gas and electric is set to £1.95 and £1.60 respectively.

I live in a small house and have a gas fired boiler and a few electrical appliances. 

Even when idle, the metre speedometer shows that I’m using medium electricity. This is when noting apart from general appliances are on (I.e. fridge, TV on standby, etc).

it’s also telling me I’ve exceeded my budget (set above).

 

Can anyone explain why this is happening?

 

 

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Best answer by nealmurphy 15 August 2021, 21:01

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nealmurphy
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Hi @nobleflame 

To give us a better understanding of your usage could you please let us know how many Watts are generally being used at any point and also the kWh used in a day / week?

A possible issue is whether the display is set up with the correct tariff prices.

Blastoise186
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Yeah, this sounds like the most likely culprit in my opinion. It's possible to fix part of the problem by asking the Support Team to run the SMETS Command Update Tariff Configuration against your meters. But it'd be interesting to fully solve it.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
N
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Hi thanks both,

So I’ve only had this set up for a week. 
the metre states that I’ve used 86.73kwh per week (electric). 
 

Not sure how to check the watts, but I’m currently using £0.45/hr electricity.

 

thanks again!

 

Blastoise186
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No worries! I'll make sure this tip gets documented in our IHD guides just in case. @Tim_OVO I think you've got a job there! XD

If you tap the cost on the IHD on any view where you can see it, it should cycle to Watts. It works best on Now and Daily. :)

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
N
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Ahh, right now it’s saying 335w. It was double that earlier but seems to be fairly random.

 

 

Blastoise186
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OK... That's an awful lot of juice... You may want to see what happens when you turn random devices on and off. 

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
N
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I thought as much. 
 

it will show this reading even if everything is off in my house. I don’t have any appliances or devices that consume a lot of electricity…

nealmurphy
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Updated on 15/12/22 by Emmanuelle_OVO

 

There are a few explanations as to why your smart meter IHD may be displaying high usage:

 

If your smart meters have recently been installed, it can take up to 6 weeks for your new meters to be fully commissioned and during this time you may see some unexpected figures on your IHD. If your tariff has recently changed this may result in a mismatch between the unit rates and standing charges shown on your IHD to those on your Online Account. If this is the case, you’ll need to contact our Support Team who will run a SMETS Command Update Tariff Configuration. 

 

If your usage on your IHD looks high, don’t fear, you aren’t billed to the figures shown on your display unit. You’ll be billed to the readings sent across remotely from your smart meters themselves, so it’s important to check your statements and the meter readings shown on your Online Account. If you think your smart meters may be faulty we have a helpful guide on this topic: 

 

 

 

 

If you have an immersion heater, make sure it's not been left on. 

I'd start by seeing if you can turn everything off (except fridge etc.) and see how low you can get the 'Now' usage. Then turn things on one by one. Anything that heats will use a low of electricity including things like halogen bulbs.

 

OVO member but not got a smart meter yet? - Book today!

 

Interested but not yet an OVO member? - Check out our plans!

N
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I’ve tried this. The reading seems to stay the same. Right now, for instance, the meter claims I’m using £0.43 per hour. My current electricity usage today is up to £2.84, which seems ludicrously high and unsustainable.

Blastoise186
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I'd agree there. Most likely due to the tariff configuration not yet having downloaded. But this won't mess up your billing as that's calculated by a different system. The meter and IHD only goes off of what they've got locally. 

Once you get the Support Team to download the correct data, this should be corrected.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
S
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I did a little experiment yesterday. You may want to try it yourself.

For my own reasons, and for a few minutes only, I cut off the supply altogether (There is a double pole switch between the meter and the consumer unit). This made my SMETS2 meter pulse LED glow red continuously (instead of pulsing once per 1 Wh electricity consumed) because it assumes there’s a fault, but I was reassured to see that the IHD registered a power consumed of 0 W, and the smart meter reading remained the same, for as long as the supply was cut off. Everything went back to normal when I switched the power on again.

(This is also known as a creep test, I believe.)

I had ice packs that I transferred from the freezer to the fridge to help keep things cold while the power was off, and I had to reset my various clocks and the CH programmer after the power came back on, but my experiment told me what I wanted anyway.

Simon
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Thanks Blastoise - I’ll contact them tomorrow. 

N
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I did a little experiment yesterday. You may want to try it yourself.

For my own reasons, and for a few minutes only, I cut off the supply altogether (There is a double pole switch between the meter and the consumer unit). This made my SMETS2 meter pulse LED glow red continuously (instead of pulsing once per 1 Wh electricity consumed) because it assumes there’s a fault, but I was reassured to see that the IHD registered a power consumed of 0 W, and the smart meter reading remained the same, for as long as the supply was cut off. Everything went back to normal when I switched the power on again.

(This is also known as a creep test, I believe.)

I had ice packs that I transferred from the freezer to the fridge to help keep things cold while the power was off, and I had to reset my various clocks and the CH programmer after the power came back on, but my experiment told me what I wanted anyway.

I’ll give try at a go too. Thanks for the advice!

Blastoise186
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No worries, glad we could help!

When you contact the team, I definitely recommend letting them know about this thread and the fact you’ve already had a chat with myself, Neal and Simon on the forum. It will definitely help you a lot.

I can’t promise they’ll be able to run the SMETS Commands just yet as it takes a few weeks to fully commission everything. But it should be possible to ask for this to be done once your meters are communicating.

It’s really, really unlikely that a brand new Smart Meter would be clocking too fast or slow already - especially because Smart Meters have built-in self-diagnostics that were totally non-existent in traditional meters. But doing a quick Creep Test never hurts anyway. It’s valid for all electric meters regardless of type and can identify issues that self-diagnostics don’t pick up on.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
N
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Again, thank you all. Very helpful!

 

one final question. I have just moved into this house (hence the new smart meter) and realised that the central heating has been on despite the fact I haven’t used it since it’s summer and all. 
 

I have a regular boiler with a separate water tank. On the controls I can set the CT to come on independent of the hot water.  Is it safe to shut the CT off over the summer and just use the hot water? Thinking this may save me electricity.

S
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Depending how the control system works, it can be absolutely fine to have the heating "on" during the summer - a room thermostat will simply tell the boiler that the house is already warm enough and nothing will happen when the CH programmer changes from "off" to "on" at the set time.

(So, nothing would be saved. That said, I admit our CH is set to off in the summer. Belt and braces, perhaps.)

Simon
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Depending how the control system works, it can be absolutely fine to have the heating "on" during the summer - a room thermostat will simply tell the boiler that the house is already warm enough and nothing will happen when the CH programmer changes from "off" to "on" at the set time.

Okay, good to know. Thanks!

B
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I have had a Smart Meter Installed today.  The IHD3 has a daily budget set for £1.16 (this is how it came, I didn’t set this).  We have storage heaters and can easily use £25 per day in very cold weather.  How can I change the daily (or monthly) budget to £25?  When I press the right arrow it increases by 1 pence -- so I’d have to press it about 2,500 times to get to £25 -- this isn’t practical.

What happens when we reach the budget of £1.16 ?  Does an alarm go off?  Does it turn our electricity off?  I don’t want an alarm going off in the middle of the night, so might just have to leave the IHD permanently switch off?

Thank you for any suggestions.

BPLightlog
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The IHD is just a monitor and will not stop your supply. 
You can set it as you suggest - the idea being that generally once set any changes would be relatively small. There are different registers for daily, monthly settings. 
When your budget is exceeded, it will display a message to that effect. They are designed to give information for you to act on should you wish to

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Hi BPLightlog,  Thanks for your answer, that is very reassuring.

 

Tim_OVO
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I’m surprised you can only adjust the In Home Display (IHD) target in increments of pennies @Betsy76. You mention an IHD3, is that Chameleon IHD3? There’s a manual by OVO on these here. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6

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