The meter box (SMETS1)

This meter box emits usage somehow to https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/ which vendors can access via a MPAN number.

The big issue is that these are not granular.

I have had a look at your account and can see that before yesterday, you had not received an up to date energy bill since March. This means that your balance was not accurate as per your latest charges. I’m very sorry your bill was so late, this was due to some missing half-hourly electric readings that were preventing us from billing your Intelligent Octopus Go tariff. When this was manually billed up to date, your statement was able to be issued and your balance updated. As an apology for the delayed statement, I have added a £30 credit to your account.

Addressing the “half-hourly electric readings” issue

Octopus Energy have a Home mini to help track live energy, I registered but they say:

it appears you are currently ineligible for the Home Mini as we haven’t received any smart meter readings from your account in the last 72 hours.

They later said:

You currently have a first-generation smart meter, that isn’t currently compatible with the Home Mini. However, the team are always working to improve bits behind the scenes and if your meter does become compatible, we’ll then send you out a Home Mini and pop you an email to let you know it is on the way to you.

And:

Some first-generation smart meters are eligible, unfortunately, yours and a few other models are not currently.

This means while you will not be able to see your live usage at the moment, you can still see your Day, Week and Monthly usage via your Octopus account. So we would recommend this as your best current option to view your energy usage.

Getting live readings

SMETS1 meters are claimed to be supported by Glowmarkt’s CAD, but they are sold out of the devices.

Another approach could be Shelly Pro EM, but they require clamps which could be tricky to install in our consumer unit.

Different parts of the property

We have a consumer unit in the garage / cottage, and ideally we want live monitoring there too!