Do I have RTS Electric Meter?

imzy1

I am told by my electricity supplier that I have RTS economy 7 electricity meter and MUST change to new meter immediately. Not sure if I have RTS setup, photos attached. Help will be appreciated.

matelodave

No, that's a time switch and as the London Electricity Board ceased to exist in 1990 its probably well over 35 years old.

Scot_39

No its an electromechanical timeswitch coupled to an old analogue two rate meter.

Think it a bit like those cheap / old style dial timer switches - you set on and off times for - say for a lamp.

A simple motor driven dial with two arms to switch over to night rate and enable the restricted feed output. The time settings look interesting.

The timeswitch switches the meter rate - on the thinner cable betweeen the two - and switches on the restricted feed to your HW / NSH (or similar) if still fitted (cannot see where the meter tail at the bottom RHS goes to)

No radio signal interface.

But like others posting similar questions - including some 2 rate digital meters less than a decade old - anything that isn't smart - is being caught up in the current RTS e-mails at some suppliers. There are other threads with others with non RTS meters getting sent the same emails.

However likely given age - it is well due for replacement.

Some have posted here that their suppliers are no longer going to allow multirate billing on such older kit unless have it upgraded.

(They were shipped with back up power - to ride through power outages - but many of these fail with age - so they stop in a power outage - and no way to correct - unless visit and open up - unlike RTS which are time synchronised - and suppliers don't like the idea of selling off peak electricity when they are going to be paying peak rates).  

The pressure on timing accuracy has only increased under the coming targets for half hourly settlement.

lohr500

I would say what you have there is an old Economy 7 timer switch that does not utilise the Radio Tele Switch system to toggle energise the Economy 7 circuits.

So the reality is that you wouldn't be affected by any switch off of the RTS service anyway.

If you look at the time pointer, does it point roughly to the current time?
It could well be that the time has drifted over the years, so it now isn't switching the Economy 7 on and off at the expected times! 

imzy1

Many many thanks for your help, much appreciated.