Why am I being billed to readings with a decimal place?

Hey @JGANLEY,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

Can you please upload a screenshot to this thread and we’ll take a look into this for you? Make sure not to include any personal information 😊

Thanks for your response Emmanuelle_OVO

From the screenshot you will will see an opening reading EST 26400 on 2 Jan and closing reading manual 26456 on 12th Jan. A simple subtraction gives a figure of 56 units used, yet as you can see OVO shows 5.80kWh used. I know this is to my detriment but I would prefer correct figures.

Also I have raised in previous comments why OVO does not show on my bill the actual calorific value used to finalize the bill.

Below is the requirement for energy companies on how to use calorific values:-

The following legislation does show requirement on how energy companies deal with CV data:-

Calculation of average calorific value in accordance with the Gas (Calculation of Thermal Energy) Regulations 1996

The CV used for consumer billing should be an average of the daily average values received from National Grid for the billing period. The use of a fixed CV, which some suppliers refer to as an ‘industry standard’, is not consistent with the Regulations. Requirement to truncate Regulation 3 (2) is clear that when calculating CV “any amount of less than 0.1 megajoules per cubic metre shall be ignored.”

This means that for a given gas billing period, suppliers should truncate the average CV to one decimal place. Rounding average CV is not consistent with the Regulations, nor is calculating to more than one decimal place.

All I need is for OVO to confirm this on my bill. OVO must have this averaged figure otherwise they could not accurately calculate my bill.

I know this data is issued for different areas of the country but OVO do need to average out the CV over the period of the bill. It is this figure that OVO have used to finalize my bill that I want to see on my bill. This enables me to check exactly the final cost. I have emailed and phoned without anyone being able to give me why iit is not available on the bill.

thanks again

This is a common complaint: that different pages of the account website show slightly different figures. You are looking at the billing page, where the meter readings are rounded for purely cosmetic reasons. It’s strange that they then show the result of the calculation to two decimal places as you noticed.

If you look at the meter readings page, you’ll see the same readings, this time rounded to the nearest .05kWh. It’s always a bookkeeping dilemma: at which stage to round? OVO’s bills have to cope with four different varieties of rounding: down (e.g. your CV examples), up (e.g. ‘rewards’), to the nearest 1p (VAT) and whatever rule is applied otherwise. The difference will never be much more than a penny or two over a billing period or even a year.

Thanks for that Firedog

I am little confused about “rounding up”, why do whole numbers from readings need be rounded up? There may be an explanation but I have not seen one from OVO.  I can accept small ongoing discrepancies but it is just the ambiguity that seems to be the problem with various aspects like CV etc. If, and I am not saying this is the case at present, the “minor” rounding up and varying CV data leave customers 1p a month/year overcharged, with a reported 4.5M customers, probably not all on gas…….well you can work it out yourself, it’s not pennies in the wrong pockets. The simple point I am making is that when customers are charged the method used to calculate that charge should be open and available with absolute clarity. Just for clarity on my part, at present I do not have auto meter, so I enter readings daily, purely so I can evaluate OVO figure daily. Any discrepancy, which is pennies, usually to my benefit at the present allows me to reverse calculate criteria like CV figure data from National Grid average. I am waiting for my bill at the end of month when I will preempt, to the penny, what OVO should be charging.

As an aside…….my wife uses cosmetics, I don’t :-)))))

Can I also mention one of the reasons I am rather pedantic about OVO following my “forced” migration from SSE, is that OVO were fined £8.9m from wrongly charging customers in 2020. Not a great basis to start my account with confidence.

I don’t think they are. Smart meters (I think) submit readings to the nearest 50wH, as shown on the meter readings page. When you manually submit readings, they are rounded down to the nearest whole kWh (“… make sure you’re not including any digits after the decimal point ...”. The only place I’ve spotted rounding up is in the calculation of the interest reward paid to long-standing OVO customers. This is calculated on what is expected to be the lowest account balance each month (just before the Direct Debit is credited), then rounded up to the nearest penny. 

Firedog 

I did mention I do not use a smart meter. I enter readings daily manually. Whether the readings are rounded or or rounded down is not the issue here, as the only numbers I enter manually are whole numbers as can be seen above.  Opening reading EST 26400 on 2 Jan and closing reading manual 26456 on 12th Jan. A simple subtraction gives a figure of 56 units /kWh used. Not 55.80kWh as OVO shows. I do not enter any numbers after the decimal point. as can be seen from the readings above. There is no way two whole numbers can be used when one subtracted from another that the resulting difference will be a part number but OVO seem to be able to.

I don’t know if anyone would be interested in the following breakdown of my gas usage to date and the possible variation in calc. results :-

Gas 19 units used 2nd Jan to 14th Jan – my OVO account shows 216.067kWH used…..OVO do not show CV used to arrive at their figures.

calc. for kWh using rolling average for this period taken National Grid daily data :-

19  X 1.02264 = 19.430 x calorific value (actual running average from National Grid is 40.08462) =778.850 ÷ 3.6 = 216.347kWh used ????

To achieve the kWh used shown by OVO (216.067kWh) the calorific value would need to be (40.03310).

∴  to achieve OVO kWh showing :- the following calc. using CV (40.03250 ) needs to be used

19 x 1.02264  = 19.430 x corrected calorific value (40.0325) = 777.838 ÷ 3.6 = 216.066kWh

Don’t ask me yet exactly what these variations mean. 

Is the difference between your 56 units and the calculated 55.80 units all because the two inputs to produce this figure are from different sources? One is your actual input meter reading whereas the other is a derived estimate, which could be calculated to several decimal places, yet truncated, rounded up or down but whatever not displayed on your meter reading page.

Possibly, but is there a need to do anything other than use actual submitted data. It all adds up to making it virtually impossible for anyone to know precisely what and how that cost is arrived at. The majority of customers are not energy auditors from Ofgem or wherever.

I think you are one of the few that’s auditing down to fractions of pence.

True.....but fractions of a penny the wrong way, when possibly applied to millions of customers can mean even more unwarranted profit for an energy company. Clarity is all anyone can ask for.

On average rounding errors even out so some win and some lose 

Mmmmmm.......I wonder if you went into a shop and purchased an item for £25.50 and noticed the next person getting it for £25, would you accept if the salesperson told you the items are sold on a some win some lose on price basis. I doubt it. Again I mention rounding errors are not possible using simple subtraction with whole numbers. 

That happens to me all the time 

Oh dear....I was wondering if one could approach the inland revenue with that approach. "Sorry but this year I will be paying a bit less, as I have rounded you down"......;-))))

All the income figures on the self assessment form are rounded down and all the tax paid are rounded up, so they’re ahead of you. 

You are right.....but that is on their side, you cannot say it to them....also they wouldn't round up or down whole numbers and end up with a tail of numbers after a decimal point. 

This is a good explanation Firedog thanks for your trouble. Just a small point, what I am referring to is not 80p but 0.80kWh. I can still accept that your reasoning can be applied to the anomaly. However nowhere on any bills or the OVO site does it mention how the readings are calculated using numbers after the decimal point, estimated or not.. I appreciate your taking time, I must tell you that I have asked OVO by various means, phone, email, forum but only from yourself has there  been a sensible explanation.

Another shot of meter readings…….nowhere until the UNITS USED at the bottom of the page does the decimal point figure 55.80kWh appear.

 By the way the estimated reading should not have been. This has been sorted out.

Cheers

A post by OVO about calorific values  Updated on 25/04/22 by Jess_OVO states:-

“ As this can change month to month, the calorific value we use to calculate your charges may differ slightly to the one used by your meter, which uses a set value of 39.2.”

I would refer OVO to - Calculation of average calorific value in accordance with the Gas (Calculation of Thermal Energy) Regulations 1996

The CV used for consumer billing should be an average of the daily average values received from National Grid for the billing period. The use of a fixed CV, which some suppliers refer to as an ‘industry standard’, is not consistent with the Regulations.

The above shows that if OVO were using a set value of 39.2, then they contravening the requirement to use averages.

This is a simple thing to do for OVO. The National Grid issues CV each day for varying areas and if I can average out the cv every day then I am sure the rocket scientists at OVO can do the same. They must do it to produce a bill. If they use a set value then the bill is almost certainly going to be in error.

I now have question. Can someone from OVO please tell me exactly how/when (over what period) they calculate the CV and what it is? 

I do not have a meter and enter my readings online manually every day.

Thanks for the response. The problem is support has not given me an answer. As an old age pensioner I think I will have passed  on before OVO responds officially  to any of my queries. Why are people being asked to look on the forum for answers? Surely OVO could give answers directly.

@JGANLEY i am just an OVO customer like you, I don't work for OVO. 

If you really feel strongly about OVO, then perhaps consider switching to another supplier. 

Life is too short to be dealing with this short of thing i would have thought. 

Have you considered switching suppliers to one that better meets your own needs? 

Thanks for your interest. If you look on the forum lots of people have had many problems trying to switch to another supplier. So I will hang fire until things calm down or OVO decide to treat all of their customers with respect.