Economy 7 Smart Meter Installation Error

Budge101

Hi Everyone

Has anyone else had issues having new smart meter installed due to the Radio Teleswitch Service cancellation?

Just for back ground; Octopus Energy installed new smart meter on the 21st October 2024, supposedly for duel tariff Economy 7.
The engineer only rewired the main meters for single tariff, meaning the cheap rate for overnight storage heating was never triggered. This also caused the storage heaters to be on continuous charge, leading to higher than normal bills.

Mark_d

If it was me I'd have told the engineer to connect the heating circuit via the load control switch.  In you case i'm not sure what exactly the engineer did.  Maybe they installed the meter correctly and it just needs to be remotely configured by your supplier.
Either way, you need yo get in touch with Octopus to resolve this issue.  From my experience with Octopus an Smart Meters, they've been pretty good in the end.

Budge101

Thanks Mark_d
We got an independent electrical engineer to confirm when we noticed the high bills.
Notified Octopus Energy of the issue, obviously didn't believe their engineer could have installed smart meter incorrectly.
Taken issue to Ombudsman.
Found Octopus a great when dealing with until you have an issue and they need to repay you!

dunstonh

Has anyone else had issues having new smart meter installed due to the Radio Teleswitch Service cancellation?

In the vast majority of cases, there should be no issues.

Yours is a very specific failure.  i.e. yours was not wired correctly.  So, I wouldn't be worried about others.   You have a good case and it shouldn't have been done as it was.

Scot_39

No that should never normally have happened with any sensible rts dual rate with twin live / restricted  feed replacement.

Its why ALCS smart meters exist, and all suppliers including Octopus will know that.  So should their meter fitters.

Two configurations are possible with alcs, off board and on board, see examples here  - the top has lower current wiring (thin vs thick) to a large external contactor

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81357476/#Comment_81357476

Do they only fit a 4 wirednon alcs meter by mistake.

Or did they fit a suitable meter but screw up the configuration from your requested e7 to single rate andcas part of that make both outputs live 24/7.

Can you give us the model brand and number / type, of meter or better still a photo showing its wired connections at the bottom ?.
Or simply count the number of wires - 4 thick, 5 thick, or rarer 4 thick plus 1 or 2 thin going to an external contactor - see above photos as a clue.

Its possible even the connections to your off peak meter output to off peak consumer unit tail are badly wired (**) ?
Its a fairly rare mistake if a mistake, i can only remember one post here in last few years, where both old CU tails were wired to live output via a Henley block, so sadly you wouldn't be the first


I dont really understand why you didn't do something earlier. How have you been coping all last winter and even now for hw immersion timing ?

If you want proper meter control of your hw and nsh back you need the meter either replaced with one that does ALCS (auxiliary load control)  or if you already have one but its been badly configured in software they need to reset it - to e7 or Snug if in a good signal area and its rates and afternoon boost hr appeal.

But potentially if a (**) type wiringverror, the meter cabinet rewired by Octopus to split the cu tails.  And a switch back to e7, or maybe Snug and its cheaper than e7 rates..

If you have already fitted own timers and willing to keep them in sync gmt and dst etc with off peak times, you might find one of Octopus's TOU like Cosy and its 3 off peak periods to boost nsh afternoon and evening (as long as you can avoid heavy use at its peak 4-7pm rate) or from another supplier might work better and cheaper than e7.


In terms of current meter operation

Does the meter actually record two registers - peak and off peak - or is it configured for single rate only.

What about your bills one reading or two, one rate or two rates but set to same single rate p/kWh etc.

Tariff name - do Octopus differentiate single rate and say multirate like economy 7 by adding e7 in naming ?



The former would make estimating how much they might owe you a little easier, but still not include for the out of hours heat of course

But i suspect you could - although the delay might be a factor - ask for compensation and rebilling of past n months based on say previous years splits -in theory your meter still has all the 1/2 hrly data, but it would be a massive job to use it.

Swipe

There's always a chance for things to go wrong if they are not given a brief overview of your current storage heating configuration. There's absolutely no way I'd let a meter installer start the job until they had confirmed that they fully understood how things are configured and confirmed that the storage heaters would work at off peak times at the correct rate. I'd also take a time dated photo of the old meter readings and cabling before they began and stay up late and get up early to see what times the meter switched to and from off peak and ensure that the tariff price times were in sync with the ALCS (off and on peak control switch) schedule.

Scot_39

Budge101 said:

Thanks Mark_d
We got an independent electrical engineer to confirm when we noticed the high bills.
Notified Octopus Energy of the issue, obviously didn't believe their engineer could have installed smart meter incorrectly.
Taken issue to Ombudsman.
Found Octopus a great when dealing with until you have an issue and they need to repay you!

Read this after typing my long reply.

[Do you mean an electrician, and not an electrical engineer.]

Still not clear on the exact problem, but sounds clear Ombusdsman needs to lean on Octopus to fix if getting nowhere direct.

Dont forget to ask Ombusdman or Octopus to add the electricians / engineers (?) bill to your compensation request.

Budge101

To try and answer your questions regarding the smart meter installation, see photo attached.
 As you can see, it only has 4 tails not 5.
Due to not switching from day rate to night rate the heaters were constantly on and so two units burnt themselves out.

Asked Octopus Energy to revise bills and for recompense for new heating system and had to go through the Energy Ombudsman.
Ombudsman sided with Octopus Energy and said the heating system could have burnt out at any time and only the bills should be looked at retrospectively.

QrizB

Budge101 said:

To try and answer your questions regarding the smart meter installation, see photo attached.
 As you can see, it only has 4 tails not 5.
Due to not switching from day rate to night rate the heaters were constantly on and so two units burnt themselves out.

Yes, it's immediately obvious that the installer has connected both consumer units to the permanently live supply and hasn't used the fifth terminal at all, despite fitting a five terminal smart meter.

Budge101 said:

Ombudsman sided with Octopus Energy and said the heating system could have burnt out at any time and only the bills should be looked at retrospectively.

That's unfortunate.
You could still issue Octopus with a Letter Before Action for your actual losses as a result of their botched meter installation, then take them to county court if they don't pay up. How much were the storage heater repairs?

Scot_39

Thanks for the photo.

Makes you wonder if the fitter had ever heard of restricted circuits and alcs.


[At least your guy didn't wire the 5th port and the 4th port output together as another piccy posted a while back, with tge same consequence, feeding the restricted cu 24 7 live.]

Do they need to wire it properly now as well, or have you redone your heating with self timers or scrapped nsh - to operate with 24/7 live ?

To say utilise a tariff like snug they would have to, but if youve fitted own timers to old nsh you might want to think of tariffs like Cosy and its split 8 hrs off peak

Going back to your first post - on 4 or 5 port alcs or non e7 - the cheap rate would be triggered regardless its just a timing setting - independent of alcs timing setting.
Alcs for the big power demands it applied to would ideally have been in use - so restricted to use it on exactly matched by meter timings by switched supply.  A risk when using external timings is thry become out of sync (too many suppliers quote 1 set of timings, when are regional, and ignore the upto 30 min switching delay on those per meter, and yhenbtheirs the dst / gmt 1 hr 6 months of the year)

And of course your heating on for longer than 7 hrs could easily increase costs.  As not only likely you used more of it - but that extra charged at peak rates on an e7 tariff - so c30p vs c14p these days at many of big 6.

Hopefully the device thermostats minimised those costs and Octopus compensate quickly.

Id think about a threat of action,  but also tge costs given might need to counter tge ombudsman with professional opinion.
If the new heating technically better (say old box of bricks manual nsh to modern lot 20 thermostic and programmable or top end hhr etc)  betterment might also see only partial recovery too.

It might be better to think about how best to now power your current system to earn the payback.