Smart Meter with Solar PV

thisreallyisme

Can anyone help, please?

I am going round in circles looking for an electricity supplier who can provide a smart meter compatible with solar pv and who offers a cheaper night rate.

I had fancied Octopus Go but they have told me today in answer to my question as to whether their smart meter is compatible with solar -
"Our meters do have this functionality. However, we are currently not able to offer this service to customers until we can determine with certainty that there are no glitches with retrieving export data."
As I will have an export meter it is only grid import which I need to be fully functioning but am guessing from this reply that they are not supplying smart to anyone with solar at present?

JKenH

I have just posted this on another thread as it is vaguely relevant but doesn’t involve Octopus. I have an E7 tariff with Scottish Power.

“ Scottish Power are my energy provider. When I had my panels installed I notified them that my old disc meter was spinning backwards and they referred me to their solar panel team who arranged a new meter. I asked if they would be fitting a smart meter and the lady there told me not as they were not compatible with solar panels because of how they recorded solar PV as imported electricity.“

ASavvyBuyer

We are with Octopus, on the Go tariff, and they installed a smart meter.

Although it measures export, it is not used by Octopus, as our FIT contract is with EDF.

Our 20 year contract is with EDF to pay FIT & Export payments based on the seperate Generation Meter that was installed with the Solar PV system.

I have checked, when we have been producing supplus electricity, and the smart meter does not record it as import.

In fact we have a few, at this time of year, periods when we are exporting and the api for import records 0.000kWh for half hour periods. In the summer, I hope we get a lot more of those!

ASavvyBuyer

thisreallyisme wrote: »

"Our meters do have this functionality. However, we are currently not able to offer this service to customers until we can determine with certainty that there are no glitches with retrieving export data."

It is worth pointing out that Octopus don't currently do FIT payments. That is probably why they are saying that they don't offer this service.

https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/categories/all/feed-in-tariffs/
Do you offer Feed-in Tariffs?

Unfortunately we don't support feed-in tariffs at the moment. You can still join us, though – and you should be able to keep your feed-in tariff with your old supplier.

sevenhills

JKenH wrote: »

“ Scottish Power are my energy provider. I asked if they would be fitting a smart meter and the lady there told me not as they were not compatible with solar panels because of how they recorded solar PV as imported electricity.“

Scottish Power are my energy provider, I also have a smart meter and solar panals.
I assume you mean a smart meter for the electricy provided by Scottish Power, and not the electricity generated by the panels.

JKenH

sevenhills wrote: »

Scottish Power are my energy provider, I also have a smart meter and solar panals.
I assume you mean a smart meter for the electricy provided by Scottish Power, and not the electricity generated by the panels.

You are correct.

thisreallyisme

Many thanks, everyone, I will persevere with Octopus.

EricMears

thisreallyisme wrote: »

Many thanks, everyone, I will persevere with Octopus.

You might care to look at my assessment of Octopus elsewhere in this part of forum (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75120412#Comment_75120412)


In particular, note that Octopus are only offering the 'Go' tariff to first 1000 customers and I imagine that figure has already been reached.

ASavvyBuyer

EricMears wrote: »

You might care to look at my assessment of Octopus elsewhere in this part of forum (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75120412#Comment_75120412)


In particular, note that Octopus are only offering the 'Go' tariff to first 1000 customers and I imagine that figure has already been reached.

Please note that the above statement is incorrect. The first 1000 only applies to those that wanted a "cheaper" smart Zappi charge point, as part of their switch to Octopus Go.

As far as I am aware, there is no limit on the number of people that can switch to the Go tariff.

EricMears

ASavvyBuyer wrote: »

Please note that the above statement is incorrect. The first 1000 only applies to those that wanted a "cheaper" smart Zappi charge point, as part of their switch to Octopus Go.

As far as I am aware, there is no limit on the number of people that can switch to the Go tariff.

I've looked again at the Octopus website https://octopus.energy/go
and agree that if you know the restriction applies only to the 'Zappi deal' you can interpret it thus.
However, the page is very badly written and there's no clear indication what the statement 'Only available to the first 1,000 customers' refers to.