Problems with Smart Meter

Lismore

I have had an Aclara SGM1415-B Smart meter for several years and, up to now, it has worked OK.

The meter originally supplied the house with electricity on two circuits. One for the storage room heaters and th stored hot water heater and the second circuit for the rest of the house.

Initially the storage heaters only had power during the off peak night-time tariff

Due to certain problems I decided to move from OVO to Scottish Power, After swapping to a Scottish Power Economy 7 tariff I found that though I had a day and night tariff both circuits were on 24 hrs. I tried to explain the problem (Room and water heaters on during the high tariff daty period) but they did not seem to understand so I went back to OVO as I knew they had a workable Economny 7 tariff.

When I went back to OVO I was amazed to find the same problem - both circuitys on 24 hours a day. Again I tried for hours to find someone to talk to and, eventually, I got through to someone, who suggested that we wait uo until after midnight and switch the heasters and and then get up befor 7 am to switch them off. I pointed out we were 85 and 86, both with significant illnesses and on their sepcial register, so this ides was not accepotable.

After I pointed out that it may be a meter problem he offered to send someone round to inspect the system (great) but only after a wait of around two weeks. I pointed out that this would meand that we either had to live a cold hours or pay exhorbitant dates rates to heat the house. It was not very interested and said it was the best he could do.

Is there anyway I can get the meter reset to mormal wiorking conditions without going through OVO?

bob2302

Questions like this are usually in the energy forum.

QrizB

I agree that you'll get better replies on the Energy forum.

The circuit that powers your storage heaters is switched on and off by a switch inside the smart meter. This is the Auxiliary Load Control Switch, ALCS.

The timings used for the ALCS are set by your energy supplier when they send the provisioning information to the smart meter remotely, over-the-air via the Wide Area Network (WAN) that all UK smart meters are meant to connect to.

It seems as though Scottish Power sent out the wrong timing information to your meter when you switched to them, and OVO haven't corrected it yet.

Are you able to speak to OVO again, and tell them that the ALCS timing information in your meter is incorrect and they need to re-send their information? You might need to get past the front-line customer support agents and speak to their smart meter specialists.

victor2

Thread has been moved to the Energy board.

Ildhund

Just as a matter of interest, I came across a similar situation very recently. British Gas took over an Economy 7 supply from OVO but failed to get it to work properly (in this case just no heating at all). The frustrated customer reverted to OVO, but repeated attempts to re-configure the ALCS failed. An engineer was dispatched to investigate. He and the HQ techs he was working with over the phone came to the conclusion that whatever BG had done had inflicted irreparable damage on the meter's firmware and software. He was authorized to replace it there and then, the new meter was successfully configured and tested and has worked flawlessly ever since.

You don't have to live in a cold house. Until the problem has been fixed, switch the heaters on at bedtime; their thermostats will turn them off when they're fully charged. Switch them off again when you get up. At most, you'll be paying peak rate for the energy used between bedtime and midnight. All the rest will be at the offpeak rate.