OVO SMART METER EMAIL

Dark_Zero

My elderly mother in law has had several requests from OVO stating she needs to make an appointment with them to have a Smart Meter fitted or her supply would be cut off.  She has x2 meters for her THTC set up, which she had done a number of years ago when her husband was alive.  I'm not sure if this can be done or legal.  Anyone else heard this?

Scot_39

There was another poster here who mentioned  Ovo offering e10 with 3 off peak slots daily for those on thtc in another thread recently.

E7 might not be enough if old heaters size for thtc dynamic upto 12 hours in coldest spells  iircin NE Scotland variant by SSE iirc at time my uncle was on it.


And by default they may try to offer just e7 likely with just one off peak period overnight so heater charge may not last to eveningif using storage heaters.

So ask them for best equivalent deal.

You might have to persist with some cs reps though to get through to discuss anything non standard.

QrizB

Dark_Zero said:

My elderly mother in law has had several requests from OVO stating she needs to make an appointment with them to have a Smart Meter fitted or her supply would be cut off.

I'm going to assume that you haven't read these requests, as they're very unlikely to say anything of the kind.

The risk is that her time switch will stop switching and she'll be stuck on peak rate electricity with cold storage heaters.

Dark_Zero said:

She has x2 meters for her THTC set up, which she had done a number of years ago when her husband was alive.

The demise of her husband is neither here nor there, so far has her electricity supply is concerned.

Dark_Zero said:

I'm not sure if this can be done or legal.

The meters belong to her supplier, and they can replace them at almost any time for almost any reason. The suppliera have been given targets by the government (via Ofgem) to replace all dumb meters with smart ones.

Dark_Zero said:

Anyone else heard this?

There have been numerous threads on the subject over the past five years.

Ildhund

Dark_Zero said:

My elderly mother in law has had several requests from OVO stating she needs to make an appointment with them to have a Smart Meter fitted or her supply would be cut off.  

Have you seen these emails? Is that actually what they say (her supply would be cut off), or is that just her interpretation of what they say? molerat has explained that no-one knows what will happen to RTS-controlled loads when the signal is switched off, so there are chances that some users will lose all heating. That's not the same as having the supply cut off, but it could still be uncomfortable. 

Gerry1

I've made these points many times before but I'll repeat them.

molerat said:

If she has metering that is controlled by a radio switch then that service is being shut down in the very near future.  No one is actually certain what will happen to all these different meters when that happens.

I don't believe that.  Obviously there's a detailed specification for the Radio TeleSwitch system, and that will make it clear what happens.  Do you think that the industry never undertook any testing when the system was launched or prior to its withdrawal being announced?  Do you really think they've never had the foggiest idea what would happen if Droitwich failed so they just kept their their fingers crossed for 40 years? Clue: it's not exactly difficult to disconnect the ferrite rod aerial and observe the effect.

molerat said:

Some will carry on as normal with maybe a bit of drift as time goes on, some may be stuck in whichever mode they were in when the signal is turned off - it could mean the heating goes off and stays off.

I don't believe that.  It would have been a thoroughly negligent design with an easily foreseeable vulnerability allowing for widespread fraud.

Students would have worked out decades ago that they'd get cheap rate 24/7/365 if during a cheap rate period they screened the RTS unit, jammed it with interference or disconnected the ferrite rod aerial.

Scot_39

Yet another mention of Ovo offering E10 metering for THTC replacement today

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81190548/#Comment_81190548

Comfirming the OP in that threads earlier mention

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6566787/economy-10-electricity-price-comparison

Others have also referenced Ovo offering split time - one even contained a link to Ovo website and their 3 off peak slot timings a day across the regions.

Might have been to this help page, but thought that one showed more regions

https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/article/electric-heating/economy-10

EssexHebridean

Allowing that the “fail safe” assumption that things will be fine when the signal is shut off IS only an assumption, I’m not sure I’d want to be the one telling a (presumably elderly, and therefore potentially at least on some level vulnerable) person that “it would probably be OK” to be honest. Rather, I think I would be encouraging them to get the meters changed, but to probably plan this is for slightly warmer weather so that any teething issues with a changed tariff, getting used to new timings etc could be worked through when it wasn’t quite so “heating critical”.

A lot of older folk have unfortunately been scared by the various fearmongering around smart metering and “all the problems it causes” - in fact there are very few problems, although the OP’s Mum is in a position where the change needs to be done by someone who understands her setup and will be conscious to ensure that everything should work as intended. Those of us with the ability to sift through the nonsense need to be mindful of reassuring those people though, rather than taking a stance of “this can’t be legal” for example - why would it not be after all, the meters belong to the supplier, not the householder, so it really is up to them what they do with them! 

Smart meters are simply the current level of technology - it should simply be thought of and presented as “my energy meters are being changed” rather than with all the rhetoric that’s been created about it. 

ECO10Wouldbenice

All ThTC meters to be changed to smart meters as Longwave,which THTC meters use to communicate the timings to turn on cheaper rate, is being turned off in June this year. However, our experience has been disappointing. Ovo promised Eco 10 but only getting Eco 7 as smart meter cannot communicate with OVO. Getting nowhere with them. Everytime we call we get fobbed off that no engineers available to fix problem. They promise to phone back and never do. Left cold as not enough off peak time to fully charge. And because of setup they only can charge up on off peak. Make sure if having smart meter fitted it is configured to the tariff agreed before they fit it. Energy companies are aware of these problems especially in Scotland but this is not communicated to the customer. Record all phone calls and ask the awkward questions. We wish we had. 

Scot_39

Sounds awful.

Have you escalated as a formal complaint.

Oh and try and record your use of plug in heaters and claim compensation from Ovo for the peak vs off peak rate difference.

Others have managed to be compensated by taking case to Ombudsman after 8 weeks after being in similar circumstances.

Especially If on the psr I'd also be tempted to ask for them to loan you (I doubt they could) a couple of suitable heaters or again ask for  compensation for any standard cheap type you buy as a stop gap - if going to turn bitterly cold again - say a couple of £20-30 fan or convector type or perhaps for several hours use of an afternoon evening cheaper brand oil filled rads - full size basic 1.5-2 kW start from c25-£40 in sales right now - might be a safer option..

You could at a push if tach savy Buy a couple tapo 110 type  plug in  smart + power monitoring sockets and record their use directly. For claim purposes. 

Ildhund

That's sad to hear, but can you confirm that the meter is changing tariff according to E7 timings? We've seen too many examples of new post-THTC installations where the E10 tariff has been correctly applied to the meter, but the switch that controls the heating circuit hasn't been set accordingly. This means that much of the charging will be done at peak rates … It doesn't sound like this happened in your case, though, because the full 7 hours should be enough to charge your storage heaters, even though that may not be enough to keep you warm in the evenings. 

The latest smart meters are designed to complete their configuration 'over-the-air' during the installation. If there's no connection to the smart meter network (the WAN), this can't happen. It's only recently (within the past three months) that OVO have been pre-configuring meters for E7 or E10 so that they should still work as promised even though there's no signal to enable them to call home. You must have been ahead of the loop, or just unlucky. Sadly, there's no way for the installing engineer to know in advance whether the signal will be good enough to complete the configuration even though the network administrator says it should be. 

There just aren't enough meter engineers around to do all the work that needs doing at the pace demanded by the RTS switch-off. At least that won't be a problem for you.