Metering Requirements of Octopus Snug

HalfFull

Afternoon all.

We have a house with electric night storage heaters. In the longer term we will change this, but for the here and now we are on a basic E7 tariff. Octopus Snug looks like one of the best options so trying to change over.

We have a 6 year old 5 wire SMETS2 smart meter, (EDMI ES-12B) with the heaters of the aux line, and currently reporting 1/2 hour readings. We can see the aux line switching on the heaters over night on the internal clock on the daily billing.  The manufactures data sheet for the SM confirms it has a Secondary 100A LCS relay, so everything looks good.

BUT!, we can't seem to switch to Snug. Octopus say our "current meter type is not compatible". But if it's not, I can't imagine what is? I'd like to check to see if what they really mean is "the (incorrect) database entry says your current meter type is not compatible" So before I "go in to bat" is there something else I should look for?

Many Thanks in Advance
Mike

MWT

There are some known issues with certain meter firmware that seems to be getting in the way of the Snug tariff, so even if you have a 5-port SMETS2 meter is not 100% certain that your meter will be compatible...

I would check that they do have your meter type correctly recorded, but they may be correct that even so, it is not currently compatible with snug...

matelodave

AFAIK there are some meters that Octopus scant communicate with, yours might be one of them so you may need a meter change to make it happen.

Scot_39

It could be a database issue - so check with them direct.

But at least one other user here referred to meter brand issue - but didnt actually state their brand.

vienna28

I rejoined Octopus last month.  Initially my octopus profile wouldn't let me switch to snug.  I emailed them and they responded:

"I've tried activating the ALCS on your meter and I'm getting a 'null' response which indicates this isn't working as intended. I will need to raise this with our smart metering team in order to triage this issue more effectively. I will be back in touch once I receive a response"

......

Anyway they didn't get back but on the 9th April my octopus profile let me switch to snug but in the first week on snug tariff I was still stuck on E7 timings for both storage heaters and hot water.

However on the 16th April it suddenly switched to the Snug timings.

I believe you and i must have an identical meter.  So if the Octopus energy 'smart metering team' fixed the issues with my smart meter so I could go on snug, then you would think they could do the same with yours. 

So don't give up hope.  👍

Later edit:  In my photo i erased out the numbers on my smart meter in case they are important. 

mmmmikey

... something to be aware of is that of all the various smart tariffs this one is probably the most challenging one for Octopus technically. As such, to be realistic I would expect the teething problems to take some time to sort out. As far as I know, this is the only smart tariff that uses the ALCS in this way. That's not to say it doesn't sound like a good idea, it's just something to keep in mind.

Scot_39

There were other attempts to provide dyamic TOU tariffs for night storage heaters - but they needed more than just your meter and any old heaters.

So internet and remote connections to control heaters - schemes trialled by Ovo and EDF with Dimplex - like 

https://company.ovo.com/ovo-and-glen-dimplex-heating-ventilation-announce-partnership-to-drive-the-decarbonisation-of-heating/

https://www.kaluza.com/kaluza-edf-and-dimplex-join-forces-to-cut-carbon-through-smart-heating-in-the-uk/

The current generation Dimplex specs reference dynamic remote control of charging - but its literally just a sentence iirc - scant on details.

I wonder if any of the home automation bods here have automated it in some way ?

The true beauty of the Snug approach - is you dont need the latest expensive heaters - just in theory a standard smets2 meter and any old NSH - as long as it can use the switched restricted feed.

mmmmikey

Scot_39 said:

There were other attempts to provide dyamic TOU tariffs for night storage heaters - but they needed more than just your meter and any old heaters.

So internet and remote connections to control heaters - schemes trialled by Ovo and EDF with Dimplex - like 

https://company.ovo.com/ovo-and-glen-dimplex-heating-ventilation-announce-partnership-to-drive-the-decarbonisation-of-heating/

https://www.kaluza.com/kaluza-edf-and-dimplex-join-forces-to-cut-carbon-through-smart-heating-in-the-uk/

The current generation Dimplex specs reference dynamic remote control of charging - but its literally just a sentence iirc - scant on details.

I wonder if any of the home automation bods here have automated it in some way ?

The true beauty of the Snug approach - is you dont need the latest expensive heaters - just in theory a standard smets2 meter and any old NSH - as long as it can use the switched restricted feed.

When I was on Agile, I was using smart switches to charge up old style box of bricks storage heaters when the rate was cheapest. It worked well after a bit of experimentation, but I moved from Agile to Flux which gave me almost identical import rates and higher export rates with a fixed schedule so the need for a dynamic schedule went away. To get the timings right, I was downloading the rates for the following day each evening and then setting a schedule using that. This meant that all the switching was done locally and I wasn't subject to any kind of internet delay and able to stop and start charging on the dot of the 30 minute boundaries. It also worked well with a crappy internet connection - as long as I got the timings some time in the evening, even if it took a few tries, I could reliably charge up the heaters the following day. I've since ditched the old storage heaters and replaced them with secondhand Elnur High Heat Retention models which work much better - all they need is 3 hours a night and then the heat is available to use whenever without having to worry too much about leakage.

HalfFull

Thanks for all your helpful replies.

I'll go round the loop a couple of times with Octopus and see where it gets me.
It is a house of a recently departed relative which we're looking after in the short term. If all else fails I can honestly tick the "own an EV"  and put it on one of these tariffs. They seem to overlap the actual usage quite well. Every once in a while I go across and charge the car

Thanks Again
M