Unexplained Use Jump - End of My Tether Here

Are you basing the 22kWh average on your old electricity bill listed usage or just the Tapo attached devices?

If you have 2.5 years worth of data, how does it compare if you calculate for the same 4 month period from the previous year from Oct - Feb ?

Yes literally the usage jumped here from the date of installation. We 'used' more units on a day we were away from home than on a busy day prior to installation

Are you actually monitoring the meter "on the wall" itself??.

Have you got a well or septic tank? Either of these could be running more than they should. I have an owl monitor and find it very good.

On the well side have you an outside toilet gone faulty calling for water continuously or something like that? Did you mention earlier you've seen a big draw during the night of around 3Kw? That to me would match an immersion coming on. It's very frustrating that a change of provider has brought on this problem.

If your smart meter has a flashing LED then 1000 flashes is 1 kwh. Suggest switching off all pumps, fridges, TVs etc to get the electrical load down as low as possible, fill your electric kettle and switch it on, start your stop watch exactly when you start counting the flashes, after exactly say 25 flashes stop your watch, note the exact time taken, check the wattage on the bottom of the kettle, it might give something like 2850W at 230V & 3100W at 240V, ideally you should monitor the voltage when the kettle is switched on but you will still get a good feel even if you havn't a M.meter because your apparent usage has increased by over 30%, 29 kwh/day vs 22. If it takes exactly 30 secs to give a 25 flash count then the power is 3600*25/30, 3000W, if the count is 25 after say 23 secs then the apparent power is 3600*25/23, 3913W or + 30% which would be a good pointer if something "wrong" with the meter. The only other thing I can think of is that the smart meter is only measuring kva and not taking the motor power factor into account, both these scenarios are a bit unlikely IMO but you can check out the first bit relatively easily and take it from there.

Can you just read the meter on the wall?

No fancy gadgets, just poll it daily or hourly for a few days if you think they're may be overlap or something awry, if the meter hasn't been swapped then that should tell you fairly quickly.

I recorded mine for a few months last year with the big hike in prices, pen and paper and jotted it down at the same time every day, took a note of the big consumers on that day, dryer, shower, washing machine, dishwasher, electric heater etc

Go to the esb networks website and you'll get the half hour breakdown of your usage. That should show when the power was used. Might help.

Out of interest, how many Tapos do you have? I have the 4 but been hesitant to buy more. I had one on the freezer for a couple of months - and could see I was using circa 27kw a month. But once I knew it across 2 months I didn't see much more value in it so I moved the Tapo. As in, what could I do with the data - not like I could turn the freezer off....

Re your usage issue. That would drive me nuts too. But can you look at the HDF file in Excel and see if the jump is at a particular time or what? Can you graph the 7 days before and after your switching and see if anything stands out from visualising it? Cause if the extra 7kw a day is just spread right across the 24 hours, then it is bizarre alright.....

There have been issues with smart meters here and in the UK.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/thousands-warned-over-malfunctioning-smart-meters-leading-to-overcharging-esb-admits-connectivity-issue/a872442693.html

My billing is Bi monthly on the 10th of the month, I take the meter readings directly off the meter and they are exactly the same as my billed consumption.