DrFfybes wrote:didds wrote:meanwhile Shell are still setting up my new accont, Green have cloised my old one , and ive no way to find out anything (like annual consumption... I had a note of it and cannot find it now)
When I queried OTF last week about their estimate of my gas consumption being double the figure I gave them, they said it was based on previous years meter readings. We've only lived here a year,
but obviously (and probably unsurprisingly) there is some system for the providers to look at historic meter data. When I explain we'd only been here 1 year they rechecked and dropped the DD back to my figures - it seems the previous owners didn't own jumpers
(My emphasis added).
Almost, but not quite.
The system operators of the pipe and wire networks have systems which maintain for each supply point (effectively each customer) an estimate of annual consumption. These estimates are updated each time an actual meter reading is obtained. Profiles are applied to these annual consumption estimates to get estimates of consumption over very short time periods (daily in the case of gas and half-hourly for electricity). Each supplier is required to financially balance the amount of supply they put into the network with the amount their customers take out over these short time periods in a process known as "balancing and settlement". Balancing and settlement effectively underpins the operation of the competitive market where multiple suppliers share the same networks of pipes and wires.
Because the centrally produced annual consumption estimates play such a central role in balancing and settlement there are rules on how they are updated when a new (actual) meter reading is obtained for a supply point. One consequence of these rules is that it can take quite a long time (12 months plus) for a sudden change in a consumption pattern at a supply point to be properly reflected in the annual consumption estimate. Such sudden changes can occur, for example, on a change of occupant or when a property changes to/from being empty.
Suppliers have access to the centrally produced annual consumption estimates and the profiles applicable to their customers. It allows them to check that they are being charged correctly under the balancing and settlement system. Almost certainly most new entrants will also be using these same items for billing purposes where actual meter readings are not available. (Despite what your bill tells you, suppliers estimate consumptions rather than meter readings - the estimated reading on your bill simply comes from adding the estimated consumption to the previous meter reading.) Suppliers are not obliged to use the centrally produced annual estimates and profiles for billing purposes but most do so because (a) it avoids the need to invest in developing their own estimation methods (which might be more reactive to sudden changes in consumption patterns) and (b) OFGEM long since ceased to take any interest in the accuracy of estimated bills.
The current business model of suppliers seems to be, provide us with monthly meter readings. If you don't, you'll get low quality estimates and it will be your fault for not sending us your readings.
When the customers of a failed supplier are transferred to a new supplier, there is a large data migration exercise that needs to take place, transferring data for a large number of customers from the failed supplier's billing system to the new supplier's system. Although each billing system does pretty much the same job, they will all be organised and structured very differently. Getting the data migration right is no doubt one of the factors that adds delay to the transfer process.