Smart Meter - Estimated Reads Every Day for Nightsaver EV Plan

[boof88]

Hey team,

I have a Smart Meter + Solar.

I recently changed to the Night Saver EV Plan.

Every day, since then, my usage between 12AM and 4AM is estimated. It's the only point in time during the day that is estimated.

Why is this?

Also, I no longer get usage reports during the day - it's normally at least 1-2 days behind. I'm sure it used to be quicker than this.

What do I do to solve this? It's useless trying to talk to the agents online on the chat, they don't understand.

[Lester]

Hey there Boof,

It's usual to get info on the app reliably by end of next day, for me often after about 5pm.

This is due to the meter data being available from the network provider in that way to the retailer.

So the EV rate is showing actual usage for 0400 - 0600 ?

But 0000 - 0400 is estimated ?

Can you see on your usage page and little download icon where you can click 'download your usage data', and get a CSV file to open in Excel or other such spreadsheet ?

(The retailer must provide data / have data download freely available to every one of their customers.)

Does your data show A (actual) for far right data quality code ?

You should see F for final reads on old analogue meter(s), perhaps an E in some fields at times until final data is confirmed, I also see U sometimes on my controlled load, and M which I'm also not sure what that means is on the last data line, updated to A next download.

When I first got solar on, it took a while for some items to move from estimated to actual on the app graphs etc.

We switched to the EV plan too and found it was reliably recording in the E1 reading on our main meter, they just take the 0000 - 0600 intervals and charge at 8c . . . basically eliminates off peak charges.

If the problem persists, not sure what you can do with getting past online chat / phone consultants, you need to get it escalated most probably, and have someone get onto their tech people to look at your data and the 0000 - 0400 problem.

[boof88]

That's a great point, I forgot about the CSV Data. It looks, for the most part, intact, but the website shows it as estimated. The only point of time where this was estimated data was back in February.

Check this out for the 31st CSV data:

And here is the graph for the day - note, this is how all days look (except with varying usage, obviously). Those same 5 spots are estimated, and have been, since activation.

[Lester]

Can't see codes for those meter amounts, but probably normal usage meter, as AGL puts the EV 0000 - 0600 into that data and splits off to charge at the special EV rate.

Those amounts look like normal usage, drop off when your EV is programmed to stop etc.

M is one quality flag that's not on the AEMO Meter data file format specification I have found before online, along with U that comes up sometimes, so not sure what they both mean.

Is your solar kicking in on that same meter ?

I can't see that start up in the latter figures when it should be showing, solar might be on another meter, but that's not normal with digital meters, might depend on meter brand.

[megan_AGL]

Hi there,

Thankyou for reaching out. There could be a number of reasons why your usage data is showing estimated on your app.

Usually this data will come through prior to billing however, if you wish to have this data verified early we can send a request to your meter provider to provide us with the data.

If you wish us to proceed please reply, or contact us on 13 12 45.

Kind regards,

Megan