Many UK gas and energy suppliers are yet to confirm their websites are working correctly following several major site crashes caused by a spike in traffic as users flocked to upload meter readings ahead of bill increases.
Customers reported issues with websites across the likes of EDF, Shell Energy, Scottish Power, So Energy and Octopus Energy.
Outage site Downdetector also reported that E.ON, Scottish Power, SSE and British Gas saw issues.
Energy website down
British Gas tweeted that its website was having trouble dealing with the number of meter readings being submitted, and is yet to confirm that the issue has been resolved.
According to data from Similarweb, British Gas website traffic increased significantly compared to the last three months, which saw 8.4 million total site visits in February 2022 compared to 7.6 million website visits in December 2021.
"The SSE website crash from the huge spike in users submitting their energy readings, due to the energy price hikes, is a great example of the sort of outages that IT systems face when not built to cope with load increases,” said Jamil Ahmed, Engineer at Solace, who provide real-time data solutions for the likes of Barclays, NASA and the London Stock Exchange.
“This is not dissimilar to Ofgem’s scheme to stream the readings from smart meters in real-time in the Market-wide Half Hourly Settlement (MHHS). This switch from data updates means a 48x increase in data volume, which Traditional IT infrastructures are not built to cope with.”
Similar to British Gas, EDF energy posted a statement confirming the technical issues with its website and app were also due to the high volumes of meter readings being submitted at the same time. The company added that it is working to resolve the issue.
TechRadar Pro reached out to British Gas and EDF Energy to find out when the issues with the websites will be resolved and what systems they have put in place with their web hosting provider to ensure outages caused by spikes traffic do not occur in future.
“We would like to reassure all our customers that no one will be left out of pocket as a result of the system issues,” British Gas said in a statement. “There is a form on our website that customers can fill in to submit yesterday’s meter reading. Also, anyone who received a text from us can reply with yesterday’s meter reading.”
EDF Energy said it is still working on the issues with both its website and app.
“We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. We urge customers not to worry and want to reassure them that they don’t have to submit meter readings to us today and can share these with us in the coming days,” added the spokesperson.
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Via BBC News
