Time of Use (TOU) tariffs and how to compare your prices with other suppliers - discussion

I have an passive-class house  with home automation, so I have a high degree of control of my time of consumption.  I like OVO as a provider, but the financial benefits of a time of use tariff are absolutely compelling for me.

1. Does OVO have any plan to introduce a TOU tariff in the near future, or am I in effect being forced to switch to an alternative supplier, such as Octopus which does offer one?
2. I understand that OVO / DCC have a migration programme for their Secure Liberty 100 E1S0B1 SMETS1 meters to DCC management by firmware upgrade that is due to complete mid 2021.  How can I find the status of my meter?  

Hi @TerryE - two great questions!

I am completely with you… a Time Of Use tariff is an absolute necessity! It’s not just the financial flexibility which matters, but that it provides an effective mechanism for us consumers to make daily decisions which help combat Global Warming.

1: We can be absolutely certain that OVO intend to introduce a ToU tariff. This is very much the bedrock on which they have been developing the new Billing System.

It must be as frustrating for the software developers as it is for us, that the strategy is being thwarted by intermittent inconsistencies in the data retrieved from our Smart Meters. Octopus took a different approach to this, but the OVO design allows for greatly increased opportunities to incorporate devices controlled by the Flex Platform, also being developed by Kaluza.

Unsurprisingly this was one of the subjects which featured in my conversation with Stephen Fitzpatrick last month. He is giving clear instructions to the relevant Managers as to how they should proceed. The immediate result is that we now have a Tech Treehouse which I have described more fully here on the Forum.

The aim is to capitalise on the high quality fault-analysis from customers on the Forum, and discuss the symptoms directly with the Program Managers rather than via Customer Services (the official route).

@Tim_OVO was in the same conversation with Steve, and he is tasked with bringing the relevant OVO and Kaluza staff into that Tech Treehouse. The first set of fault symptoms has now been posted there ready for them.

2: The migration of SMETS1 meters to the National Smart Meter Network has been underway since August 2020. That means the SMETS2 firmware has already been downloaded into your meter.

OVO offer batches of meters to be adopted over the months. They initially moved customers on the Priority Services Register in order to ensure that their sites would be connected via DCC before the cold weather of winter set in.

I don’t know how you will be able to tell when your site has been migrated. In theory it should be a seamless operation!

The supplier I’m moving to, Green Energy UK, as part of my V2G trial will operate a TOU tariff during the trial, it’s called their TIDE tariff and is generally available.  It discourages use between 16:00 and 19:00 weekdays by charging 32.55p per Kwh.

@Transparent, thanks for your reply. 

My current OVO fixed price E7 electricity bill is roughly double what it would be for an equivalent Octopus ToU tariff.  My pay-back period for my £30 termination fee is much less than a month.  

Unfortunately “absolute necessity” is a statement of intent not a timescale.  It’s not worth the hassle for me to switch supplier were OVO to introduce a ToU tariff within the next 3 months, say.  Beyond that it becomes a no-brainer.

Again, I agree with you @TerryE . I have no doubt that it is as annoying for the OVO Directors as it is for us customers that a Time Of Use tariff is still not launched.

Let’s note that both Octopus and Green Energy UK are relatively small companies when compared with the OVO Group. They have shown much greater agility in creating workable code and obtaining useful feedback from users.

It’s now more than 12 months since the substantive fault reports appeared here on the Forum about issues with OVO’s new Billing System. That means the majority of customers who provided that feedback will now have changed contract.

Although I’m certain that the software developers within Kaluza have noted a number of these Forum posts, their lack of direct engagement with the customers is galling.

For too long they have persisted in working within their exclusive bubble in the mistaken belief that they will suddenly have a bug-free world-class product which we will be congratulating them for.

I’m afraid that ship has long since sailed.

@Transparent, thanks again for your valuable response.  As an end-consumer, I had missed this OVO Kaluza aspect. 

I am retired now,  but I was the CTO for the operations division of an internal IT services provider in my later career. I spent a lot of my time interfacing to CTO and CFOs of multi-nationals, so I understand that it is really hard to develop a successful IT strategy to address a market that is responding to pivoting technical drivers.  Some like Apple, Tesla and Amazon get this balance right and follow a successful strategy leading to significant growth.  Most get this wrong and either fail or at least badly falter.

My feeling is that OVO are floundering and for me personally, it is time to switch providers. 

It is nice to see more competition, but this tariff seems very expensive. Even if you use as much electricity during the night as you do during the peak period (and it is called peak period because most people use more electricity), the average price is 16.8p/kWh. For normal use, you are probably around 20p/kWh. Nice concept, but uncompetitive numbers. There are many better tariffs out there. 

The tariff seems expensive @MrPuds because we’ve only been told one price-point within one time-slot.

All ToU tariffs have major drawback at the moment because they’re still trying to average-out the costs across the nation. They have an inbuilt rigidity which helps to attract customers whilst the software is still being developed.

If an Energy Supplier took the bold step of basing their ToU tariffs on the true energy costs within the customer’s geographical location, then those of us living in areas with an over-supply of renewable energy would quickly snap up a contract. Contrarywise they’d lose customers in the large (profitable) metropolitan areas…. and could therefore find their shareholders objecting!

It’s a tricky balancing act to keep enough customers on board whilst the ToU algorithms are being honed.

So, a year later, massive energy price hike, COP26 behind us and still no TOU plan

To be brutally honest, now is not a good time for any energy supplier to launch a ToU tariff at all. Even Octopus Agile is currently pinned to the maximum possible rate pretty much non-stop at the moment, which is wiping out any possible savings you could make from it. If it wasn’t for the caps they put in place, the prices would have skyrocketed beyond reasonable levels.

Until things return to the real normal, it’s unlikely that any other supplier including OVO would be keen to introduce a ToU deal.