To not accept that we have been using this much (pic attached)

[winniebeen]

See chart below.

Ovo are claiming our energy usage jumped 7x in on Dec 12th and stayed that high.

I have years worth of data to show we use around £2 a day, not 14.

They are claiming our house looks like it is using that much.

Has anyone had this issue before, we clearly aren't using that much energy!

Yes, 2/2.50 a day was normal for us. This was Novembers bill.

Will do.

We don't have solar panels, underfloor heating or anybody staying with us over Christmas, just us two adults and our child. We don't have an electric hob. We do have an electric oven and an alarm system but all the same stuff we have had for years:

We have separate building, garage, but nothing is turned on in that. We do have immersion heating and an electric shower but we have always had that. It's such a mystery.

Has the immersion heater been left on? I'd start with that then the freezer.

You mentioned Christmas lights. Were they outside ones or are you just talking about tree lights inside?

So it's not the chest freezer then? Cos that sounded like mystery solved to me...

When we had a similar issue I bought one of these:

TP-Link P110 Smart Wi-Fi Socket with Energy Monitoring Mini | Toolstation

The culprit was quickly identified - an old fridge freezer in the garage, was drawing a constant 400W.

Just tree lights. Not outside ones.

Ooh I have Tapo plugs and the app already. I'll do that!

I'd turn everything off that runs on the electrics (even your boiler) and unplug it for a few hours, and checking what you're reading is at that point and see if it's showing any usage. If it does, either someone else can use your electric (I've heard of this where people are living in flats or apartments) or meter is faulty. If there's no movement, then it'd be worth going through the process of seeing how much each electrical items is using in case one is faulty, maybe try high energy ones to start with like immersion, cooker, fridge/freezer.

Are your kWh for December still around 300? Ours fluctuate around the same amount in winter which equates to around £90, gas is a fair but more on top or is it that you've been underpaying and they are trying to get that back?

Something definitely doesn't look right. 1,177kWh in December seems very high: as a comparison, we both work from home, have an EV and a hot tub and we used 914kWh.

As a first step you should download your smart meter usage data from here: https://data.n3rgy.com/consumer-login and check it matches what's shown in the app (in case its simply an issue somewhere in Ovo's system).

If the data does match then you should be able to tell from the download data exactly when (within 30 minutes) that your usage increased...it might give you a clue if something was turned on at that time.

Rough calculation:

• Normal usage: 298kWh
• December usage: 1,177kWh

= Excess usage: 879kWh

879kWh / 19 days (12th-31st December) = 46kWh per day, or 1.93kWh per hour
That's within the capability of a 13a socket, but suggests its a pretty high wattage appliance/device - usually a heater of some sort.

If you can't find anything plugged in anywhere, then the next thing to check would be the immersion heater....it could be the thermostat has gone on it and its staying on all the time instead of cutting out when at temperature.

On normal weeks (Sept, Oct, Nov,) I am using around 9kwh a day. In December it goes to 50kwh a day.

Yes, spoken to my partner and this is the plan going forwards.

I’d go go for an intermediate stage, and turn off the chest freezer first. Just because it sounds like a potential culprit. If that doesn’t drop your usage significantly then carry on switching other things off.

If you have an in home display it updates pretty much immediately. Set it to show current electric usage and note the current value. Then switch one thing off, check the display, then switch the next thing off. I’ve done that when doing an energy saving session, to help decide what is worth switching off.

Thank you for the in-depth feedback.
It's quite stark seeing it like that.

I didn't know you could get that data from your meter. That's brilliant. I'll check that out.

We don't have any heaters in the house, (electric ones) and I'm not sure whether we have an immersion heater for the water- will check with partner when he's in.

That's a huge amount, we're a family of 3, 3 bed semi fan assisted electric oven , electric under floor heating in the bathroom which I know costs a bit. You're using more kWh in a week in December than we use in a month, and you're usage in November was similar to ours. That's something wrong, either with the meter or a device. Do you use a tumble dryer? We don't really, so unless you're tumbling a couple of loads a day (and even then it's still very high) I don't see how it's possible

We do use a tumble dryer but again we haven't changed our usage of that. We just use it as normal.z

Does your system have a hot water tank? If yes, look for a switch on the wall near it......that'll likely be an immersion heater. They aren't always labelled....ours just looks like a light switch in the airing cupboard.

When our usage went up we discovered the culprit was a fire tablet that wasn't holding charge. So it was constantly trying to charge when plugged in and draining our usage. Stopped charging it ended the problem

Ex Energy worker here.

It is probably the additional chest freezer. I would start with that anyway. Good luck.