Smart Meter Communication - or NOT? Part 3

Question

Hello folks, I'm a retired MIET looking for some help about smart meter communication. I'm not wanting to stir up the whole hornets' nest about smart meter suitability, but have some specific questions which I'm hoping some may be able to help with. 
 Having avoided these meters for years and years I've bought a house which had a dead gas meter. The supplier had been billing the previous (also dead) owner with high estimated bills for months and months even though the house was empty while his family worked through the estate process. The gas meter's battery had gone flat after about 7 years. I got the supplier to replace the gas meter with some initial reluctance, and their contractor changed the electricity meter at the same time. Both previous meters were SMETS1, the new ones marked SMETS2. The replacement didn't seem to take long. 
 As you might expect when I'm asking about this, 6 months later the gas meter still isn't communicating with the supplier though the new electricity meter reports "smart readings" accurately. Citizens' Advice's onlne smart-meter checker shows that the gas meter is installed but not commissioned. All attempts to get the supplier to fix this have failed, and an investigation by the Energy Ombudsman shows that they haven't done anything at all in 6 months, either internally or with DCC. They're offering a small payment for inconvenience but no guarantee that they will get DCC involved or that anyone will be able to fix this. I'd really like to get this meter to work correctly or even get another new one fitted correctly. I'm aged 75 and find it a real chore to get down to read the dim-light display outside, perhaps in the rain, or get my wife with mobility issues to hold the vertical meter cupboard door open while I try to photograph the display. I've not signed a contract with the supplier until the problem is fixed, so am on a "deemed" contract with monthly bills though the gas ones are estimated (higher) until I send them corrected values. 
 I'm not an expert in this area but the distance between meters is only about 5 metres, in a small detached bungalow with the two meters on the same level, electric in the front porch, gas in a plastic box on an outside wall. This is in a sizeable town in south-west Scotland with good mobile phone coverage from several companies and no big hills or nearby tall buildings. My new broadband supplier also mentioned radar as a possible issue when discussing initially-low wifi speeds, but their follow-up with BT got speeds on both ethernet and wifi up to very high levels, once the fibre configuration had been corrected. The nearest airport is about 5 miles away. 
 Curiously, my new next-door neighbour also found that his old gas meter was dead and had it replaced by the same supplier, perhaps surprisingly his new gas meter doesn't send smart readings for his usage either. 
 I hear from the Consumers' Association's recent survey of 10,000 members around the UK, that about 16% of users had various problems with their smart meters in the last year. Some questions for this group, is this kind of problem localised by geography, eg are there any working smart gas meters in south-west Scotland at all? Are there some suppliers with particular difficulties in operating their smart gas meters? What does it take to get DCC to look into this, our present supplier has failed to contact them at all so far, is there a cost for them to do this? I can understand a reluctance to send engineers out to every location on cost grounds but I'd have hoped that my inclusion on the supplier's Priority Service Register might count for something with some customers. 
 Could someone perhaps explain the "commissioning" process in more detail? I've read on other uncertain forums that the gas meter may only be polled via the electricity meter ever hour or so, so that engineers are reluctant to wait around for successful registration to take place. 
 The Energy Ombudsman's decision though upholding my complaint, refers to there perhaps being "potential issues... part of a wider issue with smart meters within the energy industry". Is there any public documentation of such a "wider issue" apart from the obvious cases of meters widely separated within blocks of flats, or with signal paths blocked by metalwork, tall buildings, radar etc, none of which apply to my location. 
 So, quite a lot of questions, but I hope someone can shed some light on some of these. Thanks in advance, Alan S MIET (retd)

statter · Accepted Answer

Hello Alan 
 As you surmise the gas meter is read via the electricity meter. The gas meter has no wider connection. As your electricity meter is working and is being read remotely then either the gas meter has failed or has never been properly 'connected' to the electricity meter in commissioning. The physical arrangements you have described shouldn't present a problem for these inter meter communications unless for some reason there is a larger metal barrier between the two meters. 
 Your supplier is responsible for getting this fixed. Have they been back to site since you raised the complaint? If not I would insist that they come and recommision the gas meter. If they have tried and failed then there should be some sort of report from the meter fitter which would shed light on th issue. 
 If they dont cooperate a letter (on paper) to their chief executive normally produces results.

keylevel · Answer

I had a similar issue with my meters with Octopus, but they did get on the case and try to get things resolved. At one point, the comms module on the electricity meter was replaced, but that did not make any real difference. 
 In the end, Octopus got to fed up with the "performance" of the meter reading infrastructure (not owned or run by them) that is used to pass the readings from the consumer to the supplier that they have started to supply the Octopus Home Mini that connects to the meters and sends the readings directly to them. I have had no reading issues since they sent me one. 
 Though I have had a couple of &pound;3k electricity bills when the meter reading company comes round, as their system has "forgotten" that I switched to a smart meter and they keep thinking that it has rolled over and submit crazy usage figures as a result - Octopus have instructed them to "get their act together" after this happened a second time (and gave me some credit for the inconvenience).

AJJewsbury · Answer

In Scotland and the North of England, electric smart meters use long range radio (LRR - 499MHz band I think) to communicate with the DCC rather than the mobile network. The gas meter communicates with the electric meter over the home area network (HAN) - a version of ZigBee I suspect - so I'd too would suspect a stupid setup error (or simple hardware fault) rather than anything fundamental (unless you consider lack of communication and co-ordination between call centres and the people who can actually fix such things as being a fundamental flaw). 
 - Andy.

Christopher Sperduto · Answer

Hi Alan, 
 
 Can you share which model of both gas and electricity meters are installed? If your provider remains unwilling to help, there are a number of budget-friendly options out there to streamline that data right to your phone, tablet, or a &ldquo;smart home dock&rdquo; right in your kitchen. This would at least save you the trouble of going down to the service head every month, and would provide you with completely accurate usage statistics.

keylevel · Answer

Before Octopus gave me a Home Mini, the IHD would regularly "forget" that I had two meters - usually "fixed" by turning it off and on again. Luckily, the IHD has nothing to do with the readings that (should) get reported back to the supplier. 
 A lot of the software used in devices like the IHDs is very low-quality. I think it's time that there was a legal requirement put on device manufacturers (for products containing software) to perform proper testing and to develop to a suitable engineering process (supported by a standard).

Christopher Sperduto · Answer

Hi Alan, 
 
 Streaming the data has become quite simple these days, and the Tx/Rx distance in phones is significantly better than what is built into your IHD if it&rsquo;s one that was provided by the utility. You want to download an application called &ldquo;Loop.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s free to use and gives you a much better idea of what your actual usage is, as well as saving you that dreaded trip when it&rsquo;s pouring down and cold outside. 
 Go to this website, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the image that says either android or apple, depending on your device platform: https://loop.homes/loop-smart-meter-app/ 
 
 You can create an account straight from the application. As you have an IHD, skip the part where it asks you to enter payment card details (they use this simply for address verification, there&rsquo;s no fee) and instead elect to enter your meter details (GUID, etc). All of this information should be readily accessible in your IHD, saving you the trip outside. If you can&rsquo;t manage to locate it in there, however, the details you need are all located right on the meter itself. 
 Once you&rsquo;ve linked up to both the gas and electric meters (you&rsquo;ll have to do each one separately), you&rsquo;re all set. Congrats, you now have a way to confirm your bills every month, challenge the utility, and tell them how crap their data concentrators are at bringing back your data &mdash; all without leaving the comfort of your lounge. Here&rsquo;s an image of a couple of the interfaces.

Smart Meter Communication - or NOT? Part 3

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