AGL Metering Data Errors

[Richard]

I am a retired electrical engineer and an early adopter of the AGL VPP. I maintain a database of daily consumption and solar production, sourcing data from the AGL website, SA Power Networks (SAPN) website, AGL Solar Command, Tesla and Fronius.

The AGL csv data from their website is used to drive the AGL phone app and is the basis from which AGL bills are created. The 11th column in this data is a “Quality Flag” and is normally “A” for actual read from my smart meter.

From 1st June 2017 until 13th September 2020, there have been 172,638 “A” flags, but since June 1st 2020, there have been 150 “U” flags (I don’t know what that stands for), and 144 “M” flags (missed read), meaning AGL is using corrupt data to generate our bill, and possibly yours.

SAPN have not flagged any doubtful readings since 8th February 2019. Their data agrees with the AGL data exactly, except for 1st June, 1st July and 1st September 2020.

I have been trying to get AGL to investigate this serious failure of their metering system for four months now, but to no avail. In order to see if this problem is possibly widespread, since AGL clearly don’t know, I would like to ask anyone who is interested to do one, or both, of the following:
1. Check the daily Usage data on your phone app, and see if you have any estimated values from 1st June 2020 onwards.

2. Download your usage data from the AGL website, and sort the data using the “Quality Flag” column, then “Sort & Filter” using “Sort Largest to Smallest”, to bring any non-A flags to the top.

Please let me know ASAP if you find either of these problems.

[-Jenna-]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for being part of the AGL Community.

We are sorry to hear that you haven't received a resolution for this issue yet. Unfortunately we are unable to assist via this public platform as we need your account details. I would recommend to contact us through AGL Messenger via the APP, or by logging into My Account.

Kind Regards,

Jenna

[Melissa-WALKER]

Hi Richard ,

I have stumbled across your post from 2020. Now in 2022 I find that agl is still not interested in dealing with annomolies /errors.

I received a power bill for march 2022 , to the tune of $1800+ I have solar and had changed from elec h/w to gas (not metered or supplied by agl) . I pay $25 per week and have always been in credit. Puerly due to low usage and the feed back from the solar . With the new gas h/w ,I thought for certian the bill would go down , not come in at what (agl estimate on their value saver energy plan as a whole years usage ), for 11 days in march.

All this occured after a call I made to agl to see what I would have to do in relation to the h/w on/off peak tarrif . As it turned out I was paying a flat rate and my meter (via solar installers ), has a timer on that circut. Which now runs the on demand h/w system and no timer. We use the h/w a mear 4 times a day. 3 person share housing and none of us work from home.

We have dogs so for some periods we would go upto 3-7 mths without an actual read, my customer reads were just as frequent (untile recently). My last bill came in at $223 ,I recorded via the app 3 reads .The last read( is a customer read) and sates on the bill as an estimation .

The special meter read result was a very pathetic peice of paper that arrived in the mail about 2 mths after it was carried out almost a week after the booked date and in teaming down rain . The grumpy guy was there for under 5 mins. The letter simply stated "Your electricity meter is working properly" .The date was all but cut off the top of the page and there was absolutly no other information ,eg:meter readings taken at the time of the inspection.

I still have not received any other response or communication from agl with the exception of demand letters and a disconnection notice ,( at this point I have not entered into a payment plan as the issue is not resolved).They also changed my plan against my instructions . I was receiving @$00.17 for my solar feed back ,now I get$00.05.

I will as you suggest request the metering data and forward this post/ email to agl directly. In the hope that someone can read and calculate and clarrify the errors made by agl in the meter reads and billing amounts,and get it sorted out, promptly.

I hope your issue was resolved. Thank you for your post richard . I appreciated the new information it provided ,

Melissa

[-Louis-]

Hi Jenna,

Can you please advise where I can send you my Tesla app details

as it varies extremely from what I'm being charged

[Sish]

Hi

I just started paying attention to my new automatic meter reader as my bills have significantly increased and been told a number of times under review but no help from AGL and I am just paying bills. Our quarter bills has double from $600 to $1200 last quarter and now on a monthly cycle it $440 for the month!! It just doesn't seem right the readings or the price of electricity. I can understand going up to 50%. But my bill has gone up by 100%!! No one at AGL sees this to be unusual or a concern to look into it. Might have to seek other hep somewhere to get this corrected or switch.

[Lester]

From Richards original post . . .

" The 11th column in this data is a “Quality Flag” and is normally “A” for actual read from my smart meter.

From 1st June 2017 until 13th September 2020, there have been 172,638 “A” flags, but since June 1st 2020, there have been 150 “U” flags (I don’t know what that stands for), and 144 “M” flags (missed read), meaning AGL is using corrupt data to generate our bill, and possibly yours."

I too have some U 'Quality Flags' in my data, and couldn't find this code referred to anywhere online, including AGLs own 'Electricity metering data made easy' guide.

This only shows A,S,F or V.

Seems out of date, S = Temporary, so expect this has been replaced by the E = Estimated code.

Does anyone here know what U stands for ?

[APEX]

AGL will use any means possible to defraud their customers of what they perceive to be even the smallest financial advantage (real or imagined)

[Xander-AGL]

Hi @Lester, thank you for your question.

The "U" flag means "unavailable" and usually refers to a period of time when the meter dropped out of signal, and did not report an interval/intervals to AGL.

For more of an investigation, I will need to get some details from the account, so will message you privately.

Kind regards,
Xander

[Lester]

Thanks for the info Xander, and private message.

I thought that U might be unavailable or unknown / undeterminable etc.

This was during a meter / solar upgrade, and really is negligible amount for 10 days until the installers returned and configured our 3 phase set up correctly. 

During that time I suspect my solar was feeding in and not registering also.

I was just curious about the U value more than anything, the 3kwh or so on that controlled load period is not worth worrying about.

Thanks again, I won't worry you with a reply private message.

Data since has all been 'A'  actual reads.