PV Feed In Tariff

I am wondering the same. The last billing period covered by most recent bill I got from EI is up to the 16th November last year. In the meantime I submitted an NC6 form on installation of solar in our home on 1st February (ESB eventually confirmed receipt of same after initially denying they had received it).

Following on from this the smart meter developed a fault around the 14th February and was reporting erroneous grid import data for several consecutive days and following that stopped any import or export data up to the middle of March when we experienced a power outage. ESB networks sent someone out to investigate and they told us the smart meter was the cause of the outage and they replaced it with a new model of smart meter. Since this happened I have been checking the ESB Networks consumption data and for several days it only shows export and not imported across each consecutive 24 hour period up to end of March. As of this week there is no data showing at all. I have made numerous enquiries to ESB Networks and Electric Ireland but each passes the buck to the other entity. We have two complaints registered with electric Ireland now and numerous hours spent on customer service and promised call backs by "the relevant team" but no joy. its a right dog's b***ix of a job to be dealing with them tbh.

Whilst all the above has been happening Electric Ireland have TWICE put us on the wrong price plan after agreeing to a specific 24 hour price on conclusion of our last price plan contract.

Bord Gais have finally paid out on microgeneration. I joined them in October '22. Today I received 351 euros FIT. Well pleased with that. I am over 155 in credit for my next billing. Happy sunshine days😁

I had the smart meter installed in Dec; and signed up to the night boost as soon as I could.

the bills were all over the shop during the transition; but now that I’m on the smart tariff and have set the billing date to the 1st of every month it’s all working great. Getting paid for export no issues.

one thing that I did spot is that the “insights” section of the EI site is incorrectly logging usage since the clocks changed last month. I only import between 2-4 am and I have home assistant logging all my data.

I reported the issue to EI but it was too complex for them to comprehend so i gave up. I believe the bill will be correct even though the insights is wrong.

you can download your data directly from the myaccount.esbneteorks site which confirms my usage is between 2-4 Vs the 1 hour offset that EI show on the portal. So if they do mess up the bill I will just send them the ESB export and let them figure it out.

I don’t pay via direct debit; so I will just withhold payment until it’s sorted.

Hi Hotswap,

I have previously downloaded the data off the ESB Networks account in excel format and that is what showed up the issues in February and March. Just blank rows showing no import or export value data and for a period of a few weeks in February static data values for each half hour interval.

When I posted yesterday I wasn't able to access the data at all via my account. However I was able to access it yesterday evening and I downloaded the HDF data file. It only contains export data as far back as March 29th. For the period 29th March to 12th April it only shows 3 actual half hour import intervals (pictured below) from the first few hours of 29th March. According to the remainder of the dataset I imported zero watts in the last two weeks! I have checked the export data total and it does correlates with my inverter data I'm glad to say.

I'm not one bit surprised by that to be honest. Unfortunately for me its more an issue that the ESB Networks dataset is incorrect and Electric Ireland seem none the wiser. Maybe when they see they have nothing to bill my account for they will spot the problem! The problem for me is that estimated usage will be probably be derived from before the time I had solar installed and thus be unrepresentative of my current electricity usage.

At least your are getting “insights”. I’ve had a smart meter plan enabled since january, and have 7 or 8 days of “insights”. The rest of the days are blank. The data is all on the esb site, just not on the EI site. It’s a bit of a joke, tbh.

@Granolite Looking at your HDF spreadsheet from ESBN.....

This suggests that they (may) NET out the import/export totals every 30 mins. If that was the case , if you exported 1 kWh for the first 15 mins and imported 1.1kWh for the second 15 mins of a 30 minute period, then your export would essentially be 'credited' at the full Tariff rate. (~40 vs ~ 20 cents etc).

...or do they actually total up individual numbers for import and export. I know my smart meter has a register for both total import and total export. If the HDF file is what they provide to the likes of EI/BG/SSE..., then only excess export in each 30 minute period would be counted for FIT? If this is true there may be opportunities to auto manage the timing/quantity of export (vs battery, ev or diverter) to get the optimum payback from FIT

Does anyone know how this works.

(It seems that for Business users the HDF (Harmonised Downloadable File) NET period number is used for billing purposes)

It’s covered in this page: https://www.esbnetworks.ie/help-centre/esb-networks-online-account-faqs/your-energy-consumption

My smart meter data on my ESB Networks Online Account looks different to the smart meter data presented by my electricity supplier. Why?

There can be a number of reasons why this might be the case.  The ESB Networks Online Account smart meter data file presents 30 minute interval smart meter data in kilowatts (kW). Kilowatts is a unit of measure of “power”. Every one of these data points represents the average power value for the preceding 30 minutes. Your electricity supplier data is in kilowatt-hours (kWh) which is the unit of measure of “energy”. 

The equation to convert power to energy is: kWh = kW x h

Where:

kWh is the energy

kW is the power

h is the time in hours

So, a power value of 0.25kW (the data presented to you on your ESB Networks Online Account) equates to 0.25kW x 0.5 hours = 0.125kWh of energy (energy is the data presented to you by your electricity supplier).

A second reason that customers may see a difference is that your electricity supplier could aggregate the ESB Networks smart meter data and present their customers with, say, hourly interval data. 

As an example, your ESB Networks smart meter data shows 30 minute interval power data of 0.25kW at 10:30am and 0.75kW at 11:00am respectively, then to convert this to a single data point of energy for the hour simply use the formula:

(0.25kW x 0.5) + (0.75kW x 0.5) = 0.5kWh of energy @ 11:00am

@Granolite

Maybe the meter is faulty and not recording import, reliably. Worth checking if the meter is showing increased import on the display (A+). The export is shown as (A-). On mine pressing the blue button cycles thru all the values recorded.

@HotSwap Thanks for the link, I had seen it, which is why I asked the question. It doesn't seem to be clear as the whether import & export are both recorded for each 30 mins or just the NET amount.

Perhaps someone with a HDF file showing both import and export for the same period could post a snippet & clear that up.

The more interesting info is whether ESBN report both figures or the NET 30 min value to the billing companies :)

Dumb question - my mother has a smart meter and I'm helping her find a new electricity provider - does she have to choose a smart tariff or can she choose a standard or day/night tariff?

I ask because she started with a standard 24 hour tariff 2 years ago, and has renewed once, so she's on a 24 hour currently...

Thanks. So I'm guessing we can roll over the current contract / provider, but as soon as we move we need to sign up to a smart tariff?

Energia appear to be loading the HDF as-is on my account. Everything is double vs the ESBN readings.

Not received the first bill yet. It's the usage data on my account. They get the info from ESBN and show it usually a day or two in arrears. Electric Ireland, Bord Gais etc. all do similar for smart meter plans.

You gonna start charging your supplier a daily rate? Good luck 😉

The theory behind the standing charges was that they pay the maintenance and development costs of the grid. Using that as a basis then you'd still be liable for the charges.

One could even argue they should be higher if the grid required upgrades in your area for the FIT

The reality of course is that the standing charges have mutated into a hidden way of providers appearing to offer lower rates but still charge a fortune

However the idea still holds, the standing charges pay for the "costs" of being an electricity customer, which exist regardless of whether you're consuming or producing electricity