Usage pattern suddenly become inconsistent- Is it due to my hybrid?

Hi ​@confusedofcamb ,

Please show us photos of your meter and some examples of what you’re seeing - make sure to redact personal info! Feel free to post anything else that might be relevant too.

This helps us a ton to see what we can figure out.

Thanks

Thanks so much. This image shows November 2024 (in orange) relative to the previous month (blue lines). The last two years have all been similar to the blue line pattern. 

If you scroll down that page then are the kWh figures for Nov 4th, 7th, & 16th showing as green or black?

I do note that the ones shown for the 1st and 2nd are black for Oct. and that’s helpful information already, because it indicates that those were estimates rather than metered usage.
(Or possibly that you didn’t have half hourly metering turned on last month, but as they are both 12.56kW then they are almost certainly estimates).

If the November ones for those high 3 days are green then could you click on one of them and screenshot for us the graph for that day.
That should show the half-hour usages which can help work out what may be using the power.

Thanks, yes these figures are green. Screenshot for 7 November attached. I’m racking my brains to see if 8am - 4pm is when I charged the car - and it might be. But I’m just confused why we’ve never seen that kind of spike before. Any thoughts gratefully received.

Mmm, it seems a fairly consistent use of just over 2.4 kWh throughout the daylight hours, quieter between 4-6, then up again but tapering down to bedtime.

Whatever used the energy it came on at 8 in the morning (or just after) was on all through the daylight hours apart from 4-6.

Are you taking part in Power Move by any chance?
If so then what is it that you are turning off for the Power Move hours?

I have to wonder if someone is waking up on a cold day, turning a 1.5-2KW electric heater (fan heater?) on and leaving it on all day.

Maybe going out to work, or from the timings more likely school, forgetting to turn it off, and only turning it off again when they get home at 4.
Any school age people in your household, with an electric heater in their bedroom?

Hi both. Thanks very much for your comments. Unfortunately no heaters etc. We have UFH but rarely turn it on. I work from home but that only means a laptop and wifi. I suspect the spike is the car charging (and then the oven at about 6pm) but it’s just weird that the previous months / years haven’t shown a difference in the days when we charged the car and the days we didn’t. I’ll see whether maybe the inconsistencies even out over a period - I wonder whether perhaps my meter is only sending readings sporadically so is ‘catching up’ with what looks like a spike. Anyway, thanks so much for the help - I’ll post again if I work it out! Have a good rest of weekend everyone.

Sorry, meant to say, not taking part in power move either. Good thought though.

Well those readings from October do seem to be estimated, (for most of the month from what I can see there), so it could well be that the smart meter hasn’t been connecting  properly for a while, and you may have had estimated reading for months.
Estimated readings on those graphs are always ‘smoothed out’ so you would not see any particular spikes in estimated usages.

If you go back through the months they may, or may not, have now been filled in with actual readings, so may show similar spikes now.

I’d suggest keeping a record of the dates/times you charge the car so that you can compare that to any future spikes that you may see.