11 April (Part 1) - Energy from Octopussy, bills from the Casino Royale
My Octopus Smart Meter
continues to both intrigue and annoy.
The display unit provides an enormous amount of useful information and as a
concept is really well thought out; the problem is that some reports appear to be
confusing or maybe just plain Thunderballs.
One of my correspondents thinks that stealing a few pence a day from every
customer is a deliberate ploy that rakes in millions over the course of a year
and I am beginning to think he may be on to something. Is it all a bit of a Connery?
It is particularly annoying that some - not all - of Octopus support staff
assume that customers are idiots. I know that 1961 is a long time ago but I
scored the school’s highest mark when I passed my ְ‘A’ Level GCE. I may have
forgotten most of it but I do know the difference between on and off and that a kilowatt
is not a kilowatt hour.
In pursuit of a scientific explanation I have indulged in a few experiments that
are probably not available to totally sane people, but the gas has been off at
the main valve for more than half of the past week. For three days it was off
from midnight to midnight because anything less makes a conclusion difficult to reach.
On those three days the display unit reported that I will be charged 45 pence,
27 pence and absolutely nothing. The standing charge for gas happens to be 27
pence but if that explains Day 2, how come Day 3 is zero?
Octopus Energy told me that on Day 1 I must have got up and
turned the boiler on in the middle of the night because that is when their
records say the gas was
consumed. My boiler has no timer facility, it broke long ago, and I did not get
out of bed at all on any of the three nights of the experiment. I certainly didn’t
wander into the front garden in my PJs to tug at the main gas valve.
Octopus have conceded that “it is a bit odd” but no proper explanation has been
offered. They have said the standing charge is added after midnight but whether
it is added to the previous day or the current one I do not know. Similarly I do
not know where the VAT is applied.
The electricity is easier to check. My electric car charging
and solar inverter apps send me consumption data and Octopus’s display unit provides pretty
much the same numbers during the day. I am going to assume it records
consumption accurately. However the overall numbers still do not add up.
For example at 07:30 this morning the display told me I had used 2·51 kilowatt
hours of electricity since midnight and the total cost was £1·18. The unit charge is reported
by the same device to be 29·63 pence and the standing charge 31·88 pence. 2·51x29·63 makes 74 pence
and even including the standing charge it falls quite a way short of £1·18.
It would be confusing if the tariff shown excludes VAT but the calculated price
doesn’t. That would be madness wouldn’t it?
I asked Octopus if they could provide a Quantum of Solace. They did…
The weather is cold, someone in the house may be unwell or I may have jumped
into my hot tub. As If the World Was Not Enough I may have left my immersion heater on or
exchanged my gas hob for an electric one, or an appliance has gone faulty. A
child could Knock The Living Daylights out of such pathetic excuses.
But maybe an appliance has gone faulty, like their meter display unit possibly.
Not a word about my simple bit of arithmetic.