Octopus Smart Meter Experiences

[Simavon]

My script showed that we had built up around £450 of credit over usage since we switched in late August. So I have reduced our direct debit by roughly £50 per month. I'm assuming our usage over the winter will be a bit higher, particularly since I didn't commute for 6 weeks during Sept-Nov. So in the absence of any billing from Octopus, I can at least avoid us going excessively into credit or debit. I would expect us to arrive at March roughly at break-even. We'd potentially go back into credit over the summer, due to having solar panels, or I could reduce it further.

There are no missing samples in the dataset, so I can't verify Octopus' claim that there are missing data.

Phoned Octopus today as still no billing for electricity and still no resolution on the inaccurate smart meter clock (now 2:45 off as of last time I checked it).

On billing, they're saying the switch-over meter reading still hasn't been agreed. Which is odd, since we had a final bill from EDF just weeks after the switch.

On the smart meter issue, they've done nothing since October. The cheap rate starts at 9:45pm now due to the clock inaccuracy. By this summer, we're going to be getting solar output during the 5p rate.

So a few days ago my OH emailed them to point out how long this has taken, and today we received a bill finally, with Octopus Go fully applied from 29th August. No missing readings, and it all tallies up with what I had calculated myself. Because I reduced the DD, rather than being £500 or so in credit we're about £235 in credit. I have reduced it by a further £75 from next month as our gas and electricity usage will be much lower over the summer and we don't really need to build up credit ahead of next winter.

Our average price per KWh is about 11.5p, which given the current energy market, is a very good deal.

On the smart meter timing issue, the guy who replied is asking for an explanation of the issue. This will be about the 5th time we've had to explain what's going on, and why it's an issue, over 7 months, despite having been told back in October they'd be looking at how it can be fixed. Shambolic.

 

[Simavon]

Further emails to Octopus and they have acknowledge that it's gone on for a long time (TL;DR: our smart meter has bad timekeeping and is now nearly 3h fast, and we first reported this in early September) and they have said they think that an incoming firmware update will reset the clock. That was a week or so ago, and they said the FW update would come within a couple of weeks.

I'm a bit skeptical because the meter has been gaining time for two and a half years and only now is it suddenly going to be fixed by a random FW update.

 

[kelvin 660]

My SMART meter has stopped sending (or they have stopped receiving) my gas and electricity readings! The IHD still shows daily usage and the actual meter info. I've reported it to Octopus over one week ago. Anyone know how long it takes them to sort these kind of issues out and what happens if they can't get the half hourly readings from the meter?

 

[Fred2]

My meter hasn't sent export readings for several months but has been sending import readings just fine. I flagged them with this end of Feb, they replied a fortnight later to say that

> I have initiated a 'health check' on your smart meter - this will either resolve the issue itself, or it will be flagged to one of our metering specialists for a manual investigation.

and nothing since then.

 

[robbieduncan]

Our Smart meters have not been working correctly for months. Now have a date for them to come and try and fix them. Next month.

 

[Peter 224]

My smart gas meter isn't talking to Octopus, it has been referred to a specialist, I've no idea when they will get back to me. Both meters are talking to the display unit, so it seems that the problem may be within Octopus, rather than my hardware.

 

[Simavon]

I was about to escalate (again) with Octopus so I checked this morning. The meter was displaying the correct time! Looking at the consumption dashboard (the old one, the snazzy new one is less informative ) it appears that the time was adjusted some time on Friday or Saturday. Luckily I noticed within a couple of days and the cars have been charging on solar over the weekend, so it hasn't really cost anything. Zappi and Eddi are now adjusted to the correct time.

This meter has been wrong (steadily gaining time) for nearly 3 years and it took 9 months of hassling Octopus to get a fix. Now to monitor and check it stays accurate.

 

[KennethS]

My meter hasn't sent export readings for several months but has been sending import readings just fine. I flagged them with this end of Feb, they replied a fortnight later to say that

> I have initiated a 'health check' on your smart meter - this will either resolve the issue itself, or it will be flagged to one of our metering specialists for a manual investigation.

and nothing since then.

We have the exact same issue. Import and export readings had been fine for a couple of years but the export stopped showing on our account many months ago. Seems hard to explain since import readings (electric and gas) have continued uninterrupted.

 

[kuruma]

So... two and a half years after requesting a smart meter from Octopus, we're booked in for next week. Got a call out of the blue after literally years of waiting for them to introduce new tech in meters that don't interfere with RAF signals in our postcode.

I've since written an email asking if I can finally be put on Octopus Go tariff. Not sure they're allowing people to switch, but I think our case is pretty exceptional.

 

[exlatccatsa]

I've written to the MSP, who having had no satisfactory reply from OVO and Octopus is going to forward it to the ombudsman abd possibly the press. Fingers crossed.

 

[Peter 224]

I phoned Octopus this morning, spoke to an advisor who said that she needed to talk to a supervisor and I'd be on hold for up to 10 min. True to her word, about 7 min later she came back and said that there was a glitch between the recording side and the billing system, which was now resolved. She said I'd get a bill in about 20 mins and that I should then get a regular monthly bill.

The moral of this story? Phone them, don't message!!

 

[yessuz]

I phoned Octopus this morning, spoke to an advisor who said that she needed to talk to a supervisor and I'd be on hold for up to 10 min. True to her word, about 7 min later she came back and said that there was a glitch between the recording side and the billing system, which was now resolved. She said I'd get a bill in about 20 mins and that I should then get a regular monthly bill.

The moral of this story? Phone them, don't message!!

it's been 4 weeks how they try to resolve the same "glitch"...

 

[Peter 224]

And yes, the bill arrived, covering 4 April to 5th June, correctly broken down into Octopus Go and then Intelligent Octopus.
The total bill was £361.63.

I was pleasantly surprised. Yes our unit cost of Electricity has gone up significantly, but as this includes EV power that previously was petrol and which would have been about £472.50 in the AMG C63, had we kept it.

 

[Steerpike]

Our gas SMETS2 meter stopped sending readings on 20-Apr-22 and the electricity meter stopped sending readings on 15-May-22, both reported to Octopus who apparently had not detected the failures.

On 8-Jun-22 I received a call from AES proposing an engineer visit to reboot the meters and shortly afterwards an email confirming installation of new meters.

 

[br0nr]

I've having an absolute nightmare with Octopus GO and my SMETS 2 (Kaifia MA120) smart meter.

Had the smart meters (gas and electric) installed April 2021 and got a Model 3 in June. Switched to GO. Charged on off-peak GO rates for 11 months with no issues. Suddenly at exactly 00:01 on 01 May 22 both my gas and electric meters stopped sending readings (bye bye GO tariff). Raised it with Octopus immediately.

After weeks of back and forth emails they told me it was an industry wide issue with my type of smart meter and was being investigated by DCC. After 2 months i asked them for an update and they eventually raised a complaint for me which resulted in me being able to speak to the Octopus metering team directly. They asked me to do a remote commissioning of the electric meter myself with them on the phone (simple tbh) but it didn't work. They had no knowledge of the DCC incident.

They then sent an engineer out to rectify who rebooted everything by pulling my main fuse. He then replaced my IHD and said "give it 24 hours for it all to work" then left (standard!). A week later, gas meter was submitting readings but electric meter and IHD weren't (i only care about the electric meter for charging my Model 3 on GO). Rang metering team again, they said the comms hub, HAN and gas meter was all good but the electric meter was showing as a MPAN and tariff FAIL. Sent another engineer, rebooted by pulling fuse again, "give it 24 hours". I stopped him before he went and said "this is exactly what happened the other week, its not going to work, you'll be back again. Just replace the meter" (he had them in his van and the metering team had already told me that the engineer could replace the meter if required). He refused and left.

24 hours later, still the same (no surprise). Rang metering team again, got apologies. Booked in for a 3rd visit. Metering team said the engineer WILL be replacing the electric meter. We'll see.

What an absolute farce. This country is really going to struggle over the next decade if they want people to move to EVs because the energy suppliers and smart meter infrastructure is an absolute joke.

 

[exlatccatsa]

I have been trying for 4 years to get a smart meter fitted in Shetland. I've got the MSP involved and the ombudsman but seemingly they can't do anything as there are no fitters based in any of the Scottish Islands.. nearest ones are in the Perth region..this is leading to brand new houses unable to be occupied due to the refusal of the DNO or suppliers to take responsibility for fitting new meters.. its an absolute farce.

Call for urgent action to guarantee electricity connections for new homes

‘Absolutely crazy’ situation could lead to newly built houses staying empty because electricity supply companies don’t want any new customers

shet.news

 

[Tony Hoyle]

That whole 'give it 24 hours' BS is annoying. It's just so the installer can be well away before you realize it doesn't work. When I (finally) had a correct installation the meter worked instantly.

My first installation attempt was with Bulb and they couldn't/wouldn't tell me the meter didn't work for a fortnight.. I had an IHD stuck in demo mode - the installer hadn't even bothered to commission it..

 

[robbieduncan]

24h! They replaced mine a couple of months back and the leaflet said it could take 14 days! Of course it's not working properly and it's not sorted still. Electric meter is reporting. Gas is not. IHD is not working.

 

[Adopado]

I have been trying for 4 years to get a smart meter fitted in Shetland. I've got the MSP involved and the ombudsman but seemingly they can't do anything as there are no fitters based in any of the Scottish Islands.. nearest ones are in the Perth region..this is leading to brand new houses unable to be occupied due to the refusal of the DNO or suppliers to take responsibility for fitting new meters.. its an absolute farce.

Call for urgent action to guarantee electricity connections for new homes

‘Absolutely crazy’ situation could lead to newly built houses staying empty because electricity supply companies don’t want any new customers

shet.news

Saw this featured on the TV national news the other day. The angle being taken was less to do with smart meters per se but not wanting to fit any type of meter because the companies don't want new customers!

 

[kuruma]

so after waiting 2.5 years for the install, the only thing that's worked since has been the gas meter. The electric is not sending them anything. They said it's usually the other way round. They've apparently put me on a list to get sorted but they've given me no date, presumably because no one's manufactured a calendar that far in advance yet.

So, still stuck paying 66% more per kilowatt than I should be for electricity and it would not surprise me in the least if, by the time I am able to switch to the TEP, the prices are the same as my current awful tariff.