British Gas unable to install a smart meter?

playlister82

Scot_39 said:

If you have a two rate RTS meter - to support an all electric home - it is absolutely unbelievable that anyone wouldn't expect you to need a meter with ALCS - the single box solution a 5 port meter (or in some cases a 4 port with external meter switched contactor) to replace it.

Sadly BG do not have a good reputation for E7 in particular - and even iirc one of their EV style deals - left many of their customers cheap rate times out by an hour from their promised timing.

Many but not all later generation digital meters, smets1 and smets2 smart meters - come with ALCS / restricted feed switching facilities and are the masters for timing and rate selection.

Some older model digital and analogue were slaves to timing / circuit switching from either electro mechanical or RTS electronic switches (one major advantage is that RTS models have their times updated to avoid drift over time).

I'd hope/ suspect your talking to someone not very well trained at BG - or if thats the reality of BG today -

I would be ringing around other suppliers sharpish - as many have been fitting such 2 rate alcs smart meters for several years.  

My RTS was replaced years ago by - originally by a digital ALCS with on board contactor 5 port - it was replaced by a 4 port smart ALCS with external contactor.

I think it is a combination of what has been suggested here - poor training and BG not wanting to divert from their preferred practices.

The engineer who visited most recently talked about the models you suggest, but the problem is that I live in a semi rural area with notoriously poor signal coverage, and I was told by the engineer that every smart meter needs signal to operate. He said something about a mesh  hub or an antenna, but British Gas have subsequently told me they do not provide any such gear which will help any smart meter to work in poor signal areas.

I understood from some previous comments that Octopus Energy and EON Next are helping customers in this situation, so I am contacting them about switching.

It is very frustrating and I remain hesitant to believe that everything will just continue to work as normal after the switch off without any action. I am hopeful that Octopus or some other supplier may be more willing to help and provide the equipment that will allow a new meter to work with poor signal.

playlister82

Scot_39 said:

There is no one standard for RTS.

Different manufacturer's / different circuit layouts etc.  My RTS was a meter - others are just switches that drive dual rate external meters rate selection - like yours.

[They couldn't mimic my metering / wiring / billing setup - so my HW and NSH circuits were merged - and the whole house now sees peak and off peak rates - before the rest of the house was single rate only]

But I can sympahise with the @Gerry1 view - that proper engineers could - arguably should - have built in contingency for LW radio outages.  (But good engineers arent always the ones making such decisions)

But I can also see suppliers taking the attitude that the meters are no longer guaranteed to switch as designed - and so no longer offering multirate tariffs like E7 on them - defending themselves against selling you day rate electric at night time pricing.

With electric heating it's not worth the gamble - either get BG to fit a suitable ALCS meter - or as above switch to one who can.

Do you know what the supplier specifically has to install to make it work in poor signal area? I didn't understand all the technicalities, it would be good to understand what people are meant to do when they have this additional problem.

I dread to think what happens to an older person in this situation when their RTS is switched off, and they don't have the wherewithal to discuss all of the technicalities online / with British Gas.

Scot_39

I suspect you will need a 5 port meter - but they will not be able to program it at your door / cabinet - or have it communicate with supplier or network.

Given an off network a meter should be able to function like any old digital 2 rate meter - but you wont get any updates - so whilst kWh numbers will work - estimated costs wont etc. - I dont see why they cannot offer you the a preconfigured smart meter.  As some folk have had their suppliers fit their meter's in so called "dumb mode" which partly mimics that.  But thats possibly after commissioning.

Sorry if I missed it - but are you in the North (Arqive LR) or South (cellular) regions for smart meters.

My uncle in rural Aberdeenshire - near foothills of Cairngorms - had to wait for 3 years and a second new mast in area before comms established - to get a really good smart tariff for his GSHP.

Is your whole area weak signal / others unable to get signal / smart meters - or is it more localised to your property.

If in south and nearby can - some of the cellular comms hub use mesh network comms - basically if your meter cannot see a mast - it could relay from your meter through another meter that can - to push your data etc to it - that might help.

https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html

If your in the south - on cellular - then their are a series of aerials available - T1 / T2 / T3 external type potentially.

In past I am sure I read a thread here with a photo many years ago saying that Octopus had fitted one of the internal models.

But for LR radio in north not sure there is a formal solution - unless it's a localised say meter in a farady cage cabinet or behind solid wall - their is a very short cradle / cable set-up possible - but its only 1.5 / 5 feet max iirc - for Kaifa meters - it's again mentioned in the smartme link.

You might even be able to get cellular in the north "unofficially" - as the example here - after 6 failed LR attempts - when Octopus sidestepped the rules.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq52382zd1no

"However, in what they described as “a highly unusual move”, Octopus told us that it had in fact decided to break the rules and fix his meter by connecting it to the mobile network. It added that “regulation has not moved with technology”."

The offical line is wait for the new common 4G comms hub - that are now in trial.  Those on RTS suffering with no comms don't have that luxury.  And is the 4G network any better coverage than current ?

My uncle has a smart interface that connects to his meter and his wifi a so called CAD, to relay data in real time to pc / phone etc - I have no idea why smart meters in no signal areas couldn't be designed to work with more options like that.   After all we have been paying careers like Openreach to improve rural coverage for many years for broadband.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

But for LR radio in north not sure there is a formal solution

There are somepassive repreater ideas here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1825unn/uk_smart_meter_signal_booster_420_mhz_range/

If that doesn't work for you, but you can find a friendly radio HAM, there's this option:

https://anengineersview.tech.blog/smets2-is-there-anybody-there/

Not recommend for the casual dabbler, though. Danger of death etc.

playlister82

Scot_39 said:

Sorry if I missed it - but are you in the North (Arqive LR) or South (cellular) regions for smart meters.

- Yes I am in the south

Is your whole area weak signal / others unable to get signal / smart meters - or is it more localised to your property.

- whole area is notoriously weak for mobile signal. 

If in south and nearby can - some of the cellular comms hub use mesh network comms 

- this was one of the suggestions by the engineer, and it is one of the suggestions that British Gas customer service told me they won't support.

If your in the south - on cellular - then their are a series of aerials available - T1 / T2 / T3 external type potentially.

- British Gas have also said they will not support this and they do not have any preconfigured meters either


I'm aware the customer service may have been lying / uninformed, they did say that they spoke with the metering team about this who gave them these answers. They actually advised I should go and buy one of these things myself then get back to them. I wouldn't have a clue what I am looking for and neither does anyone I know.

The problem is you can never speak to anyone apart from the random customer service agent that you are assigned at the time, there is no way to speak to their specialist metering team to get any further.
I will continue to look at switching suppliers, I just hope that Octopus or someone will support with the above and won't just say the same as British Gas. 

Ectophile

playlister82 said:

Gerry1 said:

That's my understanding, it's sent a carousel of switching times and it free runs with those until told otherwise.  Just like your digital watch: leave it a drawer, forget about it and it'll still be sounding your morning wakeup within a minute or two in a year's time.

As I've said, it can't be just an instantaneous 'Switch Now' signal because the user could block it, or failure/maintenance of the transmitter would leave it stuck on the wrong rate.  It must follow a stored schedule.

The suppliers get fined if they miss their smart meter targets, so it's not in their interests to say that E7 would run on much the same for the time being.

Unless the Powers That Be decide go for the coup de grâce, e.g. to set them all to 24h peak rate and/or not to power up the E7 circuits...

Sorry to keep asking more questions about this. I understand from what you've said that the meter can tick by by itself without a radio signal, but do the storage heaters in my flat need the radio signal to work? I've seen specific online information that says they do (signal tells meter it's night time, turns on storage heater circuits to start storing heat).

Or does the meter independently tell them to switch on at night, regardless of the radio signal?

The storage heaters don't know anything about the RTS.  They turn on when the power supply to them comes on, and they turn off when the power goes off again.  And that power is controlled by the timeswitch.

Scot_39

playlister82 said:

Scot_39 said:

If in south and nearby can - some of the cellular comms hub use mesh network comms 

- this was one of the suggestions by the engineer, and it is one of the suggestions that British Gas customer service told me they won't support.

If your in the south - on cellular - then their are a series of aerials available - T1 / T2 / T3 external type potentially.

- British Gas have also said they will not support this and they do not have any preconfigured meters either

BG entry level CS strikes again - you cant just buy an aerial - it needs an adapted comms hub - and guess who owns the comms hub - and guess who's contractors are the only ones who can fit it - and then commission it if gets a signal.

If BG cannot provide a solution - you have two options - go full blown complaint - saying they are telling you they need to replace the meter - but currently offering no technical solution.

Then wait maybe 8 weeks unless they give you a deadlock - and then wait for months - for the Ombudsman if they are busy.  And risk hitting the June deadline

OR as you say

Leave and find a more compliant supplier who might make more of an effort.  

I cannot say I'd recommend EOn for non standard metering either these days since lost their complex metering team - the frontline were pretty useless at answering anything technical. 

EDF used to have a good complex metering team too - but apparently no longer ?

Octopus were very highly recommended by some here in past - and offer £50 referral / joining bonus if do try them.

Are you aware of any of your neighbours with functioning smart meters - who supplied them ?

Ildhund

playlister82 said:

I understand from what you've said that the meter can tick by by itself without a radio signal, but do the storage heaters in my flat need the radio signal to work? I've seen specific online information that says they do (signal tells meter it's night time, turns on storage heater circuits to start storing heat).

No-one can say how your particular system works. There are almost as many different RTS-controlled systems as there are RTS-controlled systems. Wikipedia has an overview, including this text:
  

The typical use of a teleswitch is to manage the start and end times of off-peak charging periods associated with tariffs such as Economy 7 and Economy 10. This includes switching between 'peak' and 'off-peak' meter registers as well as controlling the supply to dedicated off-peak loads such as night storage heating. The use of dynamic switching instead of a fixed timer allows some additional demand management, such as by flexing start and finish times for electric heating loads according to prevailing overall demand levels.

Some suppliers also offer more sophisticated heating control using the radio teleswitch network. For example, Scottish Power 'Weathercall' and SSE's 'Total Heat Total Control' both dynamically vary the length of time storage heating is energised each night depending on the forecast temperature for the following day to help maintain a consistent household temperature.

Teleswitching has also been used to help level out demand in areas where the supply network is close to capacity. In the 1990s, Manweb used such a system to provide different households with different off-peak periods on a weekly alternating basis. By spreading out the high peak demand associated with electric storage heating in Mid Wales, the company avoided upgrading costs of over a million pounds, and £200,000 a year in reduced use-of-system charges.

In the north of Scotland, the radio teleswitch service is also used to help control the local electricity distribution network for resilience purposes.

None of these control systems will work as intended once the signal is cut off. A THTC system set by RTS to match the weather conditions for 1 July will probably just maintain those settings until someone comes along to change them by exchanging the meter.

Today, the RTS tells the storage heaters when to switch on and off, and tells the meter to start recording on the offpeak register when they do go on. That may or may not continue to happen after the signal is switched off. Your supplier will have no way of knowing when the storage heaters are on, so will probably just end up charging everything at the single rate. You should avoid getting into this situation by any means possible, perhaps appealing to Citizens Advice or another charity for assistance.