Smart Meter reading

[Riva811]

Hi I noticed our electricity jumping sky high the past few months. Had a look at the smart meter and it says consumption now 944.7kWh which is excessive. I switched off our mains and it still gives the same reading. Am i missing something?

 

[Abcan]

That’s a lot! Even with it on I can’t imagine what you could own that would use that much power! Must be something wrong. Mine sits at less than 1 kWh most of the time.

 

[Riva811]

This is the reading all the time even when the mains is off. I suspect usage now should be real time?

 

[Abcan]

This is my real time reading (through the app) from now going back in 30 minute intervals. Can you access the reading another way?

 

[Riva811]

Spoke to the supplier, they said that's not the reading. You have to press 9 on the meter then a bunch of values come through. Trying to hook up the smart meter display unit but it doesn't seem to be paired with the meter. Looking at the bill, they charged us for 429kWh over 30 days at £100. I used to pay half of that in the previous property. Weird.

 

[Abcan]

Worth keeping an eye on it. It’s hard to compare but mine was less than 200kWh from 9 May to 9 June. My wife and I are both working from home and we have 2 kids who like leaving their consoles on!

 

[Riva811]

Its weird, besides the boiler, i cant see any major consumption somewhere else. My PC is usually on at 150W idle (according to the PSU) peaks to 600 if I am gaming. We used to pay something like £50-60 a month, now 92. Mind you this supplier is a bit expensive in comparison to OVO. And previously I had a combined fuel deal which I am switching to next week.

 

[Teego]

Your neighbour farming cannabis and highjacked your supply?

 

[flowrider]

If you have recently changed then be aware that energy prices have gone up a lot recently.

My new energy contract has gone from £130pm to £166pm

 

[Alan22]

There is no end of 'Price Hike' warnings going around, but that affects your bill not your reading, if this usage is out of character, and you can prove it with previous bills, then approach your supplier with this detail, and tell them you are not satisfied that the meter is working properly, it's well known about new tech faults causing no end of trouble, and meters along with Windows OS's when launched have caused no end of turmoil for some people, as such there are a die hard set of users who refuse to adopt new tech until some time later and wait for them to become more stable, even with Windows updates many won't touch them until known bugs come to light before downloading them.

So go back to the supplier with previous bills at handf so you can demonstrate this is not a realistic figure you are seeing, more so if being billed for this figure as opposed to typical amounts, then ask them to investigate this, ideally you want a new meter installed and this one checked for technical flaws, and any billing rectified to a typical figure, again this all assumes the meter is faulty, and the only easy way to notice is having a stupid bill come in, but this may cause problems if you can't afford it (DD coming out for the full amount or similar), so try asking what the bill is likely to be on what they can see at that point, if they indicate it will be a much bigger bill than you are used to, that is the time to make sure they don't bill you until it has been checked out, hope this helps.

 

[supersim65]

Also possibly confusingly, kWh is a measure of power used over time. Just like on an old meter this could be going up and up forever. So maybe you have used 944 kWh since the meter was installed some months ago. Rather than usage for just one month.

We use 6-10 kWh a day depending on the season. Only two of us in a flat.