Ev / charging cost woes

[westfield_bumble]

This starts with a confession that I bought an ev as a daily 😤 purely financial reasons with a 90mile daily commute

 

So since i've bought my ev electric use has gone mental. Was paying £70 a month now paying £275 but I've opted to pay £30 a month for unlimited charging. On digging into the figures it appears  my meter is doubling the readings and I really dont know how far back this goes. When the car is charging in a half hour period on ohme during the night its registering 3.2- 3.4 kw/h where as the electric provider its registering as 7.4kw/h -7.8 kw/h  in a half hour period. My single phase charger can't achieve this and this is through the night when its mostly standby usage in the home. I've also discovered when I trickle charged the car before my charger was installed it had similar behaviour. Charger is only capable of approx 1.8kw/h yet the electric companys recording 3.4kw/h. 

I'm in talks with the supplier!!! Just wondering if anyone else has had similar experience. 

 

I've discivered the goverment recommend a metre to be calibrated every 5years or the manufacturers recomendation. The manufacturer wont speak to public only the purchaser. I've never heard of anyone having a metre calibrated. 

 

The supplier has referred me to the metering team as it could be a "known issue". This I find mad as if I hadnt bought the ev I would never of known I was possibly over paying as I thought I was just a heavy user. Scarey 😱😱😱

 

I fitted this https://amzn.eu/d/aqZH4oS today so I can monitor my consumption. It will take a few days as my smart metre readings are a few days behind to be able to compare

 

 

[Stuart]

Good luck. I've been fighting EDF for 4 months now cos they had two leccy smart meters and one gas listed at our new house when there's def only one of each. Recently they replaced both gas and leccy meters with new having said that was the only way to solve the problem. Guess what - I now have 3 leccy and 2 gas meters on my account and they're ignoring me. So I'll be off to the ombudsman on Monday

[dvd8n]

Whilst I'm not a fan of EVs myself I recognise that for some people they make good financial sense depending upon their use case.  With that out of the way...

 

My recent experiences with trying to get my mother switched from a teleswitch to a smart meter has left me with no illusions as to the depths of ineptitude to which the electricity companies are capable of sinking.  

 

The exact bodies vary depending upon where you live in the UK but don't be reticent in getting the ombudsman or local equivalent involved in your case.  It may be the only way to get past the foreign call centre minion and on to someone who can actually sort non-routine stuff out.

[dvd8n]

35 minutes ago, Stuart said:

I've been fighting EDF for 4 months now

 

Yep, EDF.  10 months and counting.  I could tell you the sorry tale of rank ineptitude but I'd still be typing tomorrow.

 

They've ****ed up in every possible way that you can imagine plus some really inventive ways that you can't possibly even conceive of.

[Captain Colonial]

6 minutes ago, dvd8n said:

 

Yep, EDF.  10 months and counting.  I could tell you the sorry tale of rank ineptitude but I'd still be typing tomorrow.

My next door neighbour had solar panels installed at his GP surgery to charge his EV.  It needs a three-phase supply and meter, which 6 months on hasn’t even come close to starting to be installed.  Yes, EDF is the hold-up. 🤦‍♂️

[evosteve]

In the Southwest (SWEB) old school meters were changed every 8 years and calibrated at the Newton Abbot calibration centre. It was a legal requirement then, how things have changed!

[westfield_bumble]

Well i was hoping for a bit of hope 🤣 guess I came to the wrong forum 🤣🤣🤣 its the 8 legged sea creature i'm with.  A "known issue" scares me as it just sounds like nothings been done to sort. I've read of this type of thing all been caused due to the metre clock been half an hour out 😱😱😱 scarey to think I may never of known had I not bought an ev. 

 

Another sore point is I spend more time turning things off and looking for the right screen than driving. But hey thats just the way its gone. We arent trusted to think while we drive.  Give me back switches and dials. But the bonus being It just makes getting in an analogue westy even better. Clense the sole of the ev 💩

[dvd8n]

I wonder if the electric companies are struggling generally because of the teleswitch switch off.  it does seem to have overwhelmed EDF.

[Blatman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2qp8wed0o

 

And I'll pile on to EDF. Not price related but bereavement. Needed to change ALL bills/insurances and household "stuff" from my fathers name to mine. Just about every company, agency and whatnot understood and just did it. Not EDF. I complained about the lack of service and basic human understanding. Their "bereavement department" wrote to me saying they will be in touch to resolve. That was May 2023...

I resolved it by moving from EDF to British Gas. Took 48 hours with no questions asked. EDF sent a "we're sorry to lose you, but why?" email. It was a two word reply...  

[jaykay42]

The smiley is for the last paragraph 

[corsechris]

Brace yourselves….summary at the bottom if you have better things to do….
 

Had a double-reading meter situation for quite a while after I switched to Octopus. It was OK before with the previous supplier. In their defence, they did fix it. Initially by making manual billing adjustments, then by replacing the meter. It was blamed on ‘software’. 
 

The new meter was another matter though… it wouldn’t send readings reliably, so their automated system didn’t generate bills. I had to keep nagging them. That went back & forth for a very long time and I got properly grumpy on their forum, which prompted their CTO to get involved. The eventual and reliable solution, and the one I’d suggested to them more than once was to fit an aerial to the meter. Of course, that’s far too simple, so they fitted yet another new meter with a different comms module. The fitter was obviously having a bad day because the excuses started before he even came in the house. I had already prepared a location for the aerial in the loft, within reach of the meter, having done my homework and knowing what to expect as far as cable length & mounting requirements, but even then, I had to go fit the aerial because the guy didn’t want to (fully boarded & illuminated loft, with proper access). The final insult, the guy screwed up the commissioning and left with the meter not communicating. It then took about 2 more months before I finally got to speak to an “engineer”.  This guy did know his job though. He asked me to read him the MAC address on the meter….the installer hadn’t updated the system so it was still looking for the old meter. Correct MAC entered, everything burst into life. The guy actually exclaimed he was so impressed with the speed data was coming in “fastest I’ve ever seen” he said. Amazing what decent comms will do.  
 

Overall, it was over 2 years to get to a reliable, working setup.  I wasn’t out of pocket for actual energy use and Octopus kept giving me ‘goodwill’  payments, although I’d have been much happier if they’d just sorted it sooner. The main issue I lost out on was periods where they wouldn’t put me on a dual rate tariff because of erratic readings(!). 
 

Probably the only reason I spotted the issues of double billing was because I have solar PV and a home battery, and both have their own metering which I tend to keep an eye on. 
 

TLDR, been there, got the T shirt. It took a very long time, but Octopus did actually sort it. Many other suppliers apparently do not. 
 

 

I replaced the daily with an EV this year as well. It’s fonking awesome and I am NOT going to apologise to anyone for buying it or liking it!!

[corsechris]

@westfield_bumble Point of order, the issue is nothing to do with the EV is it? It’s a metering fault. You’ve been double-charged for quite some time…..you should be grateful to the EV for making it obvious 

[evosteve]

11 hours ago, Blatman said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2qp8wed0o

 

And I'll pile on to EDF. Not price related but bereavement. Needed to change ALL bills/insurances and household "stuff" from my fathers name to mine. Just about every company, agency and whatnot understood and just did it. Not EDF. I complained about the lack of service and basic human understanding. Their "bereavement department" wrote to me saying they will be in touch to resolve. That was May 2023...

I resolved it by moving from EDF to British Gas. Took 48 hours with no questions asked. EDF sent a "we're sorry to lose you, but why?" email. It was a two word reply...  

Keep at them and when they fail to meet their own targets they love to give you money! I know it's not about the money but it made my bother in law feel a bit better when he was settling his father's estate. This happened more than once!

[dvd8n]

4 hours ago, evosteve said:

Keep at them and when they fail to meet their own targets they love to give you money! I know it' not about the money but it made my bother in law feel a bit better when he was settling his father's estate. This happened more than once!

 

My mother got so many goodwill payments from EDF that it was incredible.  It was in the multiple hundreds of pounds.  If it wasn't for the fact that my mother is 84 and there was a deadline beyond which her heating would be disabled it would have been a really nice earner.

[Stuart]

I sent EDF a proper snottogram at 0730 today. As if by magic the multiple meter issues I'd been politely tackling them on for 3.5 months were sorted by 1pm. Just have to see if the next bill is accurate now.