Author Topic: Electricity Smart Meter (Read 58724 times)

quixoticgeek · « **Reply #450 on:** 28 May, 2023, 01:31:50 pm »

Current wholesale electricity prices in .NL are €-400 per mwh. Yes, MINUS 400 euro.

(https://twitter.com/Sustainable2050/status/1662488409842020354 - source).

Alas none of us can take advantage of it, because even tho there's lots of smart meters out there, time of use tariff has not hit this swamp yet.

Combination of a very sunny afternoon, lots of wind (it's about 40kph winds out there), and a Sunday afternoon on a bank holiday weekend means demand is really low.

J

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #451 on:** 29 May, 2023, 12:17:17 pm »

Quote from: quixoticgeek on 26 May, 2023, 10:50:32 am

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-65544654

Some are blaming this on the smart meters. It feels more like the company's internals are just fucked up.

J

Very fucked up.
Our Ovo-supplied smart meter shows a daytime and nighttime rate. Neither match what we expect to be charged.
So MrsC phoned them. Summary -
"Oh, don't worry, you aren't paying that much"
"so how much will we pay"
"The daytime and nighttime rates will be x and y""
"Can you send me a document stating that?"
"Err, no, the smartmeter will show what you are being charged"
"But currently that isn't what it shows"
"Well, it will sometime"

FFS

felstedrider · « **Reply #452 on:** 29 May, 2023, 08:57:03 pm »

Quote from: mrcharly-YHT on 29 May, 2023, 12:17:17 pm

Quote from: quixoticgeek on 26 May, 2023, 10:50:32 am

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-65544654

Some are blaming this on the smart meters. It feels more like the company's internals are just fucked up.

J
Very fucked up.
Our Ovo-supplied smart meter shows a daytime and nighttime rate. Neither match what we expect to be charged.
So MrsC phoned them. Summary -
"Oh, don't worry, you aren't paying that much"
"so how much will we pay"
"The daytime and nighttime rates will be x and y""
"Can you send me a document stating that?"
"Err, no, the smartmeter will show what you are being charged"
"But currently that isn't what it shows"
"Well, it will sometime"

FFS

I’m with Ovo. If you log onto your online account you can see your tariff and back check against the monthly bills that are pdf’d. It did take a little while to catch up after the smart meter went in.

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #453 on:** 30 May, 2023, 07:28:25 am »

Quote from: felstedrider on 29 May, 2023, 08:57:03 pm

Quote from: mrcharly-YHT on 29 May, 2023, 12:17:17 pm
Quote from: quixoticgeek on 26 May, 2023, 10:50:32 am

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-65544654

Some are blaming this on the smart meters. It feels more like the company's internals are just fucked up.

J
Very fucked up.
Our Ovo-supplied smart meter shows a daytime and nighttime rate. Neither match what we expect to be charged.
So MrsC phoned them. Summary -
"Oh, don't worry, you aren't paying that much"
"so how much will we pay"
"The daytime and nighttime rates will be x and y""
"Can you send me a document stating that?"
"Err, no, the smartmeter will show what you are being charged"
"But currently that isn't what it shows"
"Well, it will sometime"

FFS

I’m with Ovo. If you log onto your online account you can see your tariff and back check against the monthly bills that are pdf’d. It did take a little while to catch up after the smart meter went in.

Mrs C manages the bills and accounts - she said it wasn't visible online. Could be because we are actually SSEN, but that is now run by OVO.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #454 on:** 11 July, 2023, 03:22:36 pm »

My meter is not smart and now never will be. It's been marked "permanently impaired".

Meter fitter came to smarten us today, looked at the meter, traced the path of various cables, and said it can't be changed unless everything in the whole building is turned off – which obviously requires everyone to be home at the same time. Possibly that could be organised via landlord but it would take a lot of organising. This is because the mains feed comes and is split at a box which sends it three ways: one to us, one to the boiler room, and one to another meter which then feeds all the other flats (there's six, I think, spread over four floors). Unless everything served by that box is off, there's apparently a risk of arcing. A lot less fun than arking. He also said, in contradiction of officialdom, that the meter as is will probably carry on working indefinitely. So he's marked it as "permanently impaired", meaning we shouldn't hear from them again.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #455 on:** 11 July, 2023, 05:27:49 pm »

Not one but two txt msgs from EDF inviting me to smarten my meters this arvo. Right at an exciting bit of the Tour stage too. You had your chance, guys, a Several of years ago, and you blew it by ringing up and only then realising you didn’t have any meter-smarteners available. Three (3) times.

Kim · « **Reply #456 on:** 14 September, 2023, 08:28:33 pm »

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 19 May, 2023, 07:26:08 pm

Octopus mini

Mine arrived this morning. Just set it up, which was painless. Not sure how useful it's likely to be if you have to get your phone out to look at the data (it doesn't seem to be available on the website, dunno if the API has access to it).

Inadvertent teardown, on account of the thing falling apart when I dropped it out of the box, reveals - unsurprisingly - an ESP32, a Zigbee wossname, some power regulation gubbins and not a lot else. Plenty of debugging/programming headers, which may get probed in due course.

ETA: It appears to be working. The instantaneous power figure agrees (to within the error expected from different sampling strategies) with my blinkylightmeter, and the half-hourly gas readings are there. The high-resolution electricity consumption graphs are rubbish though, seemingly implying that we're pulse-width modulating our electricity use so that everything is consumed in one minute out of every five. They also appear to be calibrated in Watt-hours per minute or something daft. Will give it a day or two and see if it sorts itself out.

Kim · « **Reply #457 on:** 22 September, 2023, 12:32:35 am »

Quote from: Kim on 14 September, 2023, 08:28:33 pm

The high-resolution electricity consumption graphs are rubbish though, seemingly implying that we're pulse-width modulating our electricity use so that everything is consumed in one minute out of every five. They also appear to be calibrated in Watt-hours per minute or something daft. Will give it a day or two and see if it sorts itself out.

Update: The graphs are still a waste of time, as if it's only reporting consumption in 50 Wh chunks. Possibly a limitation of this SMETS1 meter?

Which makes the whole thing a waste of time, as all you get is the instantaneous power display on your phone (which I already had courtesy of the arduino, and the crappy IHD devices manage to do just fine), and not having to wait >24 hours for the 30-minutely consumption data to become available (but again, only on your phone - it's not available in the Octopus API, or even the website).

Will probably unplug it and save myself a Watt. Maybe they'll add more useful functionality in future.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #458 on:** 22 September, 2023, 04:29:11 pm »

Someone purporting to be EDF keeps ringing my mobile. It's an 0191 number, and genuine calls from EDF do usually feature cheery if ineffectual Geordies. The evidence suggests, however, that these are not from EDF. 0191 543 3402.

Tim Hall · « **Reply #459 on:** 22 September, 2023, 04:32:55 pm »

According to the EDF webby SCIENCE that number is kosher. Whether it's been spoofed or not I cannot say.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #460 on:** 22 September, 2023, 05:22:01 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 22 September, 2023, 12:32:35 am

Quote from: Kim on 14 September, 2023, 08:28:33 pm
The high-resolution electricity consumption graphs are rubbish though, seemingly implying that we're pulse-width modulating our electricity use so that everything is consumed in one minute out of every five. They also appear to be calibrated in Watt-hours per minute or something daft. Will give it a day or two and see if it sorts itself out.

Update: The graphs are still a waste of time, as if it's only reporting consumption in 50 Wh chunks. Possibly a limitation of this SMETS1 meter?

Which makes the whole thing a waste of time, as all you get is the instantaneous power display on your phone (which I already had courtesy of the arduino, and the crappy IHD devices manage to do just fine), and not having to wait >24 hours for the 30-minutely consumption data to become available (but again, only on your phone - it's not available in the Octopus API, or even the website).

Will probably unplug it and save myself a Watt. Maybe they'll add more useful functionality in future.

Tried to reply to this earlier but mobile signal at work was useless.
When I look at the live view it gives me a bar for every minute in the last 30 mins. Our meters are less than 2 years old though. Might be worth raising it with them.
My export graph doesnt really update properly during the day, but that's ok cos I have the inverter app for that.
And now that I've read your post properly I can tell you the y axis on mine is scaled to 5.88Wh.

Kim · « **Reply #461 on:** 22 September, 2023, 05:41:01 pm »

Right, sounds like it's likely to be the meter's fault. That can go on next week's to-do list.

Adam · « **Reply #462 on:** 23 September, 2023, 09:12:33 pm »

In my shop, my supplier* has put in a smart gas meter - which I didn't know was a thing. If I've understood what the installer said, it pings a signal to the smart electricity meter which then transmits the data. So clearly the gas meter can't be that smart if it needs to piggyback off the other one.

* _{even though next month they're stopping supplying gas, as they're withdrawing from the market, so it's all being switched to a new provider. I assume they must get some bonus for putting a smart meter in.}

aidan.f · « **Reply #463 on:** 23 September, 2023, 10:58:42 pm »

Well that's just physics, the gas meter only has a built in non rechargeable battery so has to conserve power. Electricity meters are connected to lots of POWER so using a bit for transmission over long distances is practical.

Jaded · « **Reply #464 on:** 02 October, 2023, 08:46:27 am »

So, I have just got access to our (community) building's Octopus account, and I'd like to do some digging around. I can download RAW CSV data, and there is a simple dashboard that gives simple graphs - there is also access to an API. We don't have an Agile account.

Are there any good tools out there for analysis? I'm looking to see when most of our usage occurs, and then see how our new solar panels and battery will affect that.

toontra · « **Reply #465 on:** 02 October, 2023, 01:06:33 pm »

I enquire this every couple of years. Has anyone got a smart meter working well with solar panels generating feed-in tariff revenue? I'm aware of serious problems in the past like being charged for your generation rather than credited. I really don't want to screw this up as I'm getting a tidy income from the FIT payments (fixed at the highest 2009 rate).

Supplier is Ovo (was SSE).

chopstick · « **Reply #466 on:** 02 October, 2023, 01:34:45 pm »

Quote from: Adam on 23 September, 2023, 09:12:33 pm

In my shop, my supplier* has put in a smart gas meter - which I didn't know was a thing. If I've understood what the installer said, it pings a signal to the smart electricity meter which then transmits the data. So clearly the gas meter can't be that smart if it needs to piggyback off the other one.

Smart gas meters can function without piggybacking. It's a few years since I worked in the industry but iirc even the SMETS1 meters had a battery life of 15 years. They contained a SIM and would send a text message twice a day over the 2G network (another issue was the phasing out of the 2G/3G network by 2033). Even before smart meters, "Cello" devices were available that could read a pulse enabled gas meter and send the data via telemetry (SIM, text message & 2G iirc). Not very common, but there were also OCR devices that could read the index without utilising a pulse.

Large users have been using what is now known as smart technology for decades, effectively having computer systems hooked up to the meter. Also large users often use "converters" (devices which pretty much constantly measure pressure and temperature and calculate gas usage "corrected" for variations in pressure and temperature) which not only can be connected to telemetry but can also store months worth of data.

Jaded · « **Reply #467 on:** 02 October, 2023, 05:37:54 pm »

So I have found an online resource that will suck down the Smart data through Octopus's API and perform some simple analyses. That's good for now, I think.

https://energy.guylipman.com/sm/consumption

aidan.f · « **Reply #468 on:** 02 October, 2023, 10:15:57 pm »

Quote from: toontra on 02 October, 2023, 01:06:33 pm

I enquire this every couple of years. Has anyone got a smart meter working well with solar panels generating feed-in tariff revenue? I'm aware of serious problems in the past like being charged for your generation rather than credited. I really don't want to screw this up as I'm getting a tidy income from the FIT payments (fixed at the highest 2009 rate).

Supplier is Ovo (was SSE).

No problem here. The dumb solar export meter is on the consumer side of the smart meter. Two separate accounts OVO manage my FIT payments Octopus my supply.

toontra · « **Reply #469 on:** 02 October, 2023, 10:20:43 pm »

Ah - that's reassuring Aidan. Thanks. Will enquire with Ovo.

grams · « **Reply #470 on:** 10 November, 2023, 09:12:44 pm »

Octopus Mini arrived today, including a genuine knock-off of an Apple 5W USB charger.

I can see on the minute-by-minute graph exactly how long I’ve left it since the kettle boiled (eight).

The iOS app reports usage in Watt-hours/minute and total watt-hours for 5 minute and 30 minute periods, which could so easily be expressed in average watts.

(It appears to only log whole watt hours, which mean intermittent peaks when consumption is below 1 watt-hour / minute, or 60W in sensible units. Much like a meter blinkenlight)

Kim · « **Reply #471 on:** 16 November, 2023, 02:00:06 pm »

So I just looked at my phone. There's a notification there form Octopus about a saving session at 17:30-18:30 this evening.

Fucksake. If they'd sent a bloody email I'd have seen it in a timely manner. We're not all 12 year olds who live on our phones. There doesn't seem to be any way to configure notifications, so - in light of the pointlessness of the Home Mini - I've uninstalled the app, in the hope that makes them switch to email.

Further digging around the website reveals that they're planning to do special short-notice sessions specifically for Facebook users. Because that makes sense(!)

robgul · « **Reply #472 on:** 16 November, 2023, 04:15:29 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 16 November, 2023, 02:00:06 pm

So I just looked at my phone. There's a notification there form Octopus about a saving session at 17:30-18:30 this evening.

Fucksake. If they'd sent a bloody email I'd have seen it in a timely manner. We're not all 12 year olds who live on our phones. There doesn't seem to be any way to configure notifications, so - in light of the pointlessness of the Home Mini - I've uninstalled the app, in the hope that makes them switch to email.

Further digging around the website reveals that they're planning to do special short-notice sessions specifically for Facebook users. Because that makes sense(!)

Looks like it's "save it Thursday" - we had a text from BG at about 1600 yesterday (Weds) with a follow-up email that we needed to confirm taking part for a session 1700-1800 today.

An Alexa alarm has been set for 1650 to remind me to switch off our coffee machine (think single-group Costa machine) that has an immersion heater running . . that should guarantee we make a reduction in average consumption and at least get the £1 minimum bonus. [Whether our "average" will be reduced next time there's a saving session . . .?]

Coffee machine will be switched back on at 1805 - takes about 20 mins to get up to temperature . . and the oven will be switched on then too, Thursday night is pizza night.

BG say that the bonus will show on our account within 2 weeks . . . I shall be checking.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #473 on:** 16 November, 2023, 04:24:35 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 16 November, 2023, 02:00:06 pm

So I just looked at my phone. There's a notification there form Octopus about a saving session at 17:30-18:30 this evening.

Fucksake. If they'd sent a bloody email I'd have seen it in a timely manner. We're not all 12 year olds who live on our phones. There doesn't seem to be any way to configure notifications, so - in light of the pointlessness of the Home Mini - I've uninstalled the app, in the hope that makes them switch to email.

Further digging around the website reveals that they're planning to do special short-notice sessions specifically for Facebook users. Because that makes sense(!)

I got that push notification last night (which I think came from their savings sessions What's App group) which then directed me to their website to join. Initially I got a message saying I was not allowed to subscribe (as did others from what I could see on Twitter) but after a while it updated and said I had joined. While I was there I spun the meter reading wheel of fortune and received 8000 Octopoints, which was a nice surprise.

Apparently if you export during the saving session you can get paid for it as well, but I'm not sure I can be arsed fighting the not very obvious settings in the Solis webpage for the sake of one night to have to undo it again tomorrow. Battery's only 70% full now anyway.

Kim · « **Reply #474 on:** 16 November, 2023, 04:27:26 pm »

It definitely came from the Octopus app, because a) it had a little octopus icon and b) my phone is a Facebook-free zone. But I hadn't looked at my phone since about 1pm yesterday, when I last left the house.

I'm wondering if this is Google/Microsoft's fault, enshittifying email to the point where an energy company can't send a message to a large number of customers in a timely manner without falling foul of 'spam' filters. That would explain the fixation with social media channels that are notoriously difficult to automate.

Anyway, I've instructed various things to switch themselves off for the duration, and have dug out the trike battery to run the network stuff from. Place your bets on whether the UPS battery falls flat on its face during the transfer...