Economy 7 and ending of RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service)

QrizB

PHMAL said:

Given the seriousmess of the situation, Ofgem, the Government and the BBC should be looking to keep the current system going as long as possible.

It's what, four (or more) years or so since Ofgem first warned that it was going to be shut down? And there have been annual extensions ever since?

PHMAL said:

I think the energy companies have been doing their best to fit new meters

Energy companies haven't been taking this seriously until autumn last year, when they were presumably expecting another extension but Ofgem said no.
They've managed to fit 13+ million smart electricity meters yet there are still 100k or so RTS meters (some of which aren't really RTS) outstanding.

Dolor (still missed!) would have pointed out that the smart meter rollout would have been much smoother if Government had been less laissez-faire about it. A mandated reference design, for example, a coordinated street-by-street replacement programme and some centralised rationalisation of legacy ToU tariffs. Instead they left it to "the market" and we are where we are.

matelodave

PHMAL said:

My MP tells me Ofgem have confirmed nobody will be cut off from having electricity. if their RTS meter hasn't been replaced. The signal will not just totally be shut off on 30 June, but there will be s 'phased' shut down up until Seprmber. Given the seriousmess of the situation, Ofgem, the Government and the BBC should be looking to keep the current system going as long as possible. I think the energy companies have been doing their best to fit new meters, but it's probably a lot of very scared customers who've been holding thigs up. I'm not sure how much Ofgem are to blame, but they don't have the best of reputations....

They may be the intention but if the system fails before then there's not a lot to be done. May I suggest that even an all seeing MP wont be able to stop the system failing if that's what happens.

The whole idea of setting a date was to try get people swapped and protect them from a potential catastrophic failure off the transmitter which has been on borrowed time for several years.

As @mmmmikey says, there are only a certain number of final dates that can be given and trying to hold out to the bitter end or hoping it wont happen may end up in grief as they cant be certain how a meter might react to a failure of the signal depending on when it happens.

You probably wont end up cut off but the functionality will probably be lost and you may end up sitting with the meter permanently switched to either peak or off-peak and the consequential loss of heating and hot water or paying peak rates for everything depending on how your system is configured.

Its a bit late then to be running around like a headless chicken expecting someone to come and sort it out.

SusanPerb

Pixie_Cosmo said:

Well, to update, I got my SM fittted. And guess what... no TwinHeat, just overnight.

I've complained to SP, having been told I would keep my TwinHeat times. I asked the installer who said I should keep my times, and that it would be easy for SP to change the rate timings via the SM. See what happens now! 

Very irritating - that's got to be an error. 

They finally replaced our meter about a month ago and TwinHeat times took effect within 24 hours of installation - except that the switching times are now GMT all year round rather than being adjusted for clock changes. We weren't warned about that.

It should at least be straightforward to tell if/when it has been fixed:

1. The in-home device display should show a red or green arrow and a countdown about an hour before each rate change. We get these four times a day, for the start and end of both the afternoon and evening off peak periods. 
2. If your meter switches your heating on and off, you may have a really tiny little switch icon visible on the display which will indicate the current status. 

If they do reconfigure things for you, check those remain in sync just in case they do anything crazy like correct the tariff timings but forget to align the heating switching times!

Keep on at them, as TwinHeat definitely is still supported and available on smart meters from our experience. 

Qyburn

PHMAL said:

My MP tells me Ofgem have confirmed nobody will be cut off from having electricity. if their RTS meter hasn't been replaced. The signal will not just totally be shut off on 30 June, but there will be s 'phased' shut down up until Seprmber. 

Did he say what he means by "phased"? Surely the transmitter is either running or not.

mmmmikey

Qyburn said:

PHMAL said:

My MP tells me Ofgem have confirmed nobody will be cut off from having electricity. if their RTS meter hasn't been replaced. The signal will not just totally be shut off on 30 June, but there will be s 'phased' shut down up until Seprmber. 

Did he say what he means by "phased"? Surely the transmitter is either running or not.

I expect what is going to happen is that they are going to stop transmitting the part of the signal that relates to a particular area in phases. I can't think of a technical reason for doing this but it does have the advantage that if / when there are issues they won't all hit the customer services and meter installation teams at once so the process should be more controlled.

PHMAL

Ofgem say areas will be switched off when they have a good number of replacements done. I'e emailed Ogem and the Minister for Consumer electricity to say ivo the seriousness, the BBC should continue the service yet again. The Minister is a lady, Mittia Fahnbulleh.  Email minister.fahnbulleh@energysecurity.gov.uk

PHMAL

Jonathan.Brearley@ofgem.gov.uk   Consumer Affairs@ofgem.gov.uk

GingerTim

PHMAL said:

Ofgem say areas will be switched off when they have a good number of replacements done. I'e emailed Ogem and the Minister for Consumer electricity to say ivo the seriousness, the BBC should continue the service yet again. The Minister is a lady, Mittia Fahnbulleh.  Email minister.fahnbulleh@energysecurity.gov.uk

The BBC isn't in a position to continue the service, even if they want to. See this really useful post from @Newcad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81449596/#Comment_81449596

There is one valve left (they aren't made any more) to keep the Droitwich transmitter going. When that breaks, the transmitter breaks and the BBC, nor anyone else, can do anything about it.

PHMAL

But until that breaks, why not use it ??

GingerTim

PHMAL said:

But until that breaks, why not use it ??

Because a planned switch off will cause far fewer problems to customers than an unexpected switch off when it inevitably breaks.