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Octopus Go / Smart meter / Andersen A2 questions!

7.2K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  ricisbest  
#1 · (Edited)
Hi everyone.

My Polestar 2 arrived in October and I’ve been lurking here a bit since I ordered it!

I got a smart meter installed recently and moved onto Octopus Go. I have a few (nerdy) 🤓 questions that I hope someone might be able to help me with! Thanks in advance!

Has anyone on Octopus with a smart meter seen weird consumption data in their account? It thinks I used ~3.7kWh in half an hour at about 10pm yesterday. This is more than a 7kW average power draw for half an hour.

{"consumption":3.67,"interval_start":"2020-11-14T22:00:00Z","interval_end":"2020-11-14T22:30:00Z"}

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But we were just watching TV at this time, and didn't have any high-power appliances on. In fact we don't have anything that would use this much power other than our Andersen charger timed to come on at 00:35 to take advantage of the cheap Go tariff.

I went to bed at ~23.30 and the car charger wasn't on yet. The Konnect app for my charger showed it come on at the right time as scheduled.

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So I’m a bit concerned that the smart meter is mis-reporting the energy usage for the time of day. I’ve checked that we have the right date and time set on the smart meter and the car charger. Anyone got any ideas what might explain this? e.g. can the smart meter sometimes delay sending data and put it in the wrong half-hour period?
 
#2 ·
The quick answer, based on 18 months of Go; Go Faster and Agile, is no. The smart meter just
records your usage. All my ‘errors’ over the past 18 months have been car/charger set up related. I am having my smart meter changed but this is down to an issue with reactive loads and my L&G meter.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Ha OK, thanks! Fully prepared to accept user error, but having trouble figuring out what I've done wrong :).

Only thing I can think of is the charger app is not showing accurate data in its reports and/or the schedule didn't work as expected! But I didn't notice my In Home Device showing high usage during that time 🤔
 
#5 ·
I've just moved to Octopus, had the smart meter installed on the 11th and an email asking me to accept the Terms & Conditions for moving to Go, unfortunately, an error occurred when I clicked 'Sign Me Up' from the email so I will need to wait before I start using it in earnest. The IHD seems to be on the signal limit where I want to be able to keep an eye on it as it regularly displays 'Waiting for cost now'.
 
#14 ·
I had a smart meter installed at the end of July, for Octopus Go. The IHD did the same as yours. I think it's a feature of of an IHD in Scotland on Go. That is, the tariff is not loaded and I was unable to load it manually. The display of actual usage though seemed to work fine. Once I was familiar with the pattern of usage and impact of various devices I no longer used the IHD.

I am very pleased with Go and how it works with my Tesla.
 
#12 ·
Yeah I checked the actual meter clock (not just the IHD). It’s not a big deal but it just vexed me a bit - thanks for all your input folks!

I figure the most probable explanations (none of which are entirely satisfactory) are:

1) the charger came on outside of its schedule (though the extra kWh used doesnt match the total charge it added that night)

2) something else was drawing lots of power for that half hour. But can’t think what!

3) the smart meter or octopus is mis-reporting usage for that period somehow.
 
#15 ·
Another update on the Andersen: it appears when it drops WiFi or internet connection it just starts charging (so you’re not locked out of using it if your internet goes down). I’ve rearranged my mesh routers to help the signal near the charger and this has stopped it dropping out.

But even when it’s charging as scheduled and has a good connection I’ve found the reported kWh usage is much lower in the Andersen Konnect app than in reality. The charger reports 7.1kW on the main app screen when plugged in. But over an hour the Konnect app reports much less (around 5kWh for an hour). But my smart meter does show the whole 7kW (plus some small baseline usage).

Any other Andersen users seen this?