Green tech & greener living

We've just had solar panels fitted to our bungalow. Not fitted by OVO. What do I  do  now? We’re waiting on our pack from the installers. We would like to get the benefit of charging our battery during off peak times and put back excess energy to the grid?

Hi all, I've been contacted by someone saying they are an M Group Energy engineer hired by Ovo to come and fix something connected to my smart meter, and that it's a safety issue. I've received an email showing my (correct) Ovo account number, address and mobile number. I've also had a text and calls in the past couple days. I haven't replied to anything. Ovo confirmed they have no visits planned, so I've reported the email to report@phishing.gov.uk and blocked the number. Is there anything else I should be doing? Through their chat, Ovo support said they said there's nowhere else to report this and that they would never share details like account numbers with third parties. I'm not quite sure if they make account numbers public (I'd assume not?), but I found it concerning that so many of my details were in the email. Flagging here in case anyone else has experienced this.  Lorena

Hi all,I’ve had my EV and charger for 4 months, charger has been connected via the OVO charge app since using. Yesterday evening (14th Jan) I tried to charge but the OVO charge app just kept displaying ‘Connecting to your EV charger’. I have had this temporarily before and unlinking the charger from the app and reinstalling it usually fixes the issue. Last night however it would not work at all. I tried unlinking, deleting both apps and reinstalling those, nothing worked to get them to link, I ended up having to bypass OVO Charge as I needed the car today. This evening again now (15 Jan), it still won’t connect my charger to the OVO charge app. Has anyone else had this?

Hi. I really hope someone can help me. We have a gas boiler in our flat in Dorchester in Dorset but spend half our lives in South Africa. Whenever we return after a couple of months the boiler has switched off and we have no hot water. I then have to pay to get someone out to restart the boiler every time. This is really expensive! Can anyone help, either by telling me how to get the boiler to not switch off, or give me instructions as to how to start it myself, or perhaps point me to a YouTube video that will teach me. I’m well into my 70s and not very technical. I’d even pay someone to come round and teach me!:) Many thanks to anyone who takes the trouble of giving me some assistance!

Looking to see if anyone has converted their Indra smart pro from WiFi to Ethernet  Mine is on WiFi but it’s not reliable so want to move it to Ethernet  getting hold of Indra is difficult and all I have had so far is one response saying any loc electrician can do the work  but I am sure you would need to go into the settings on the installer app to tell the charger to use Ethernet instead of WiFi  so can anyone confirm if this can be done without being a registered Indra installer ? 

I finally got my smart meter on 11th July this year - PAYG for THTC - and all seems well.Until I got an email from OVO saying they have to upgrade this meter before 31st Dec for it to keep working. Unfortunately, your current smart meter model is now being removed from the wider smart network on 31 December 2025. For your meter to keep its smart features, we need to upgrade it before then. Is this normal? Why would they install a meter with less than 6 months working life left? Do they mean a software upgrade or is it a whole new meter? It is an engineer visit, that I do know, but trying to book anything online when you have a PAYG meter is an exercise in frustration

is there any point in my having a smart meter installed as there is no mobile signal from any network where I live? Can smart meters communicate over WiFi or WiFi Calling for example?

It’s been a long story… Some while ago we were offered a SMETS1 smart meter, but we delayed until a SMETS2 was available. Then an engineer came to install a SMETS2 meter, and left saying something about no signal, leave it a while. The meter is in a lower ground floor area, with a mobile signal.Finally, July 2020, new SMETS2 meter installed - not talking to the network, but wait a bit and it’ll ‘probably’ be OK. No IHD left. I thought that even if the thing couldn’t talk to Ovo at least an IHD would allow me to read the meter easily, so I requested one, which eventually arrived. Silly me, I didn’t realise that the meter - supposedly installed for MY benefit - wouldn’t talk to my home network if it couldn’t talk to OVO first.After a while we got back to Ovo who said there was nothing they could do and we would have to move our meter, at our expense (approx £250) and hope the new position had a better signal. No guarantee of that. Then I asked for a smart gas meter, reas

Have had numerous issues, multiple chats/calls with OVO CA team, with charging Volvo EX40. Had OCA app and Volvo app car charged fine but was being double billed as running via both OCA and Volvo app. Instructed to remove OCA app and only charge via Volvo app which is connected to charge anytime for 7p kwh rate. Now car will not charge at all even though in Volvo App shows plugged in and ready for scheduled start, wake up 0% added. Now trying to establish if have Hypervolt charger in Plug & Charge or Scheduled mode (no schedule added as set in Volvo app), any help please?

 It seems quite straight forward doesn’t it? You stick a thermostat on the tank. If the water is cold you turn on the boiler/heat pump and heat it back up again. What’s the problem?Well if you know where heat is going and where it is being lost you make changes to reduce your losses.So I have an old (ancient?) 160l copper cylinder with around 1” of crumbly foam insulation. It has an additional insulating jacket and recently I have added further insulation (10cm thick Diall insulation roll – the stuff made from recycled plastic bottles).In June I added four temperature sensors at approximately 1/8, 3/8, 5/8 and 7/8 down from the top (this equates to around 20l, 60l, 100l and 140l of hot water above each sensor). I can also measure the indirect coil flow temperatures in and out, and the temperature of the cold water entering the tank.The first thing to note is that water is actually quite a poor conductor of heat. You need strong convection currents

i’m old, stupid & clumsy - knocked the remote control box on the floor. box on wall lost communication with it. RC box display is blank, so power is lost. Need to get inside to fix broken wire. How?

Hi, I had credit on my public charging voucher from my month i was with ovo. I have since left and the credit has disappeared too ? Is that normal as the voucher had a longer expiry code and I was entitled to that voucher 

I’m looking for recommendations for a Gas Safe engineer in the Nottingham area who specialises in commercial installations.We currently have a domestic G4 gas connection (max ~65kW), but we need to upgrade to a U16 meter to support a 112kW load. We are finding the process with Cadent quite slow and are looking for a regulated professional who can: Advise on/handle the pipeline upgrade for commercial use. Ensure everything is fully compliant for future supplier inspections. If you’ve had work like this done recently or are an engineer who can help, please drop a comment or DM me with your details/company name.

We had a smart meter installed a few months ago. We haven’t yet been given an in-home monitor, so have to refer to the meter itself.  On checking our usage today, I noticed the meter had stopped sending daily readings since 6th of this month, which coincides with a bad storm and power outage. On checking the meter in order to send manual readings, I noticed that there were three LED status lights and, at first, the green light was showing. There were also two buttons to the left of the screen, one green and the other grey. We took a note of the reading being displayed, but since we have both peak and off-peak rates, we waited to see if it would show the other reading but it didn’t, so we pressed the green button and the display went blank. After randomly pressing both buttons, we eventually got back to the original screen, but the LED light which had been green had now changed to blue, and we’ve no idea what this means.I’ve included a photo of these lights (

Hello I have just moved into a one bedroom property (one open plan living area/kitchen downstairs) and one loft space bedroom upstairs. I am electricity only and am racking up useage of £90 a month. I am not using my heating (it's 9° inside!) I'm not using my washing machine or electric shower I can't understand how I'm using so much electricity.  I have been away for work from Monday to Wednesday evening this week and used 29kwh. Is this normal usage for just a fridge, a router and 2 smoke alarms? I'm too scared to put my heating on. I have not lived in an electric only property before so don't really know what is normal monthly expenditure for a one bedroom property? Any help would be appreciated.

Looks like I have issues with my smart meter, it’s not sending data to Ovo.I have a smart meter health check booked for the end of the week,but in the meantime, what are the consequences.re: charging at home & receiving charge anytime credits & a little help with your heating credits ?Especially as my Ovo Charge app has missing data. Tom…

my Mitsubishi Ecodan Remote Control box went blank after I knocked it on the floor (yes, I’m old, stupid, and clumsy). I DO NOT LIKE the Ecodan User Interface so tried to get alternative - was told it could not be done, so ended up with quote for £675+vat for the sale & commissioning of a new Mitsubishi Ecodan Remote Control box. strikes me as a bit high. Comments?

Here is an extract from the table showing my gas usage yesterday evening. As you can see, two values are recorded: 8.30pm and 9pm. If usage is recorded at 8.30pm, does this show what has been used between 8pm and 8.30pm or what has been used between 8.30pm and 9pm?

I moved into property with all electric which had Smart meter 1 and economy 7 rate.Smart meter was upgraded to a version 2.I believe this was eventuallycommissioned two days later however since being fitted has not worked correctly.Instead of getting 7 hours off peak to heat water and storage heaters it comes on for 10 mins.I know this as boiler had been checked out and the boiler company tested how long off peak was being supplied.Ovo say its on the correct rate.This had been going on for nearly two weeks and despite an escalated complaint still getting no further forward.No one appears to understand what the issue is.Can anyone help.Thanks  

My old RTS Meter (for off peak heating only) was switched off years ago - anybody in the same boat and waiting for a replacement?

 Updated on 04/11/25 by Bradley_OVO: The great things about In-Home Displays, also known as IHDs, is that they're very useful little gadgets that can show you your energy usage in real-time, but unfortunately it’s all too often that your dog knocks it off the coffee table (a dogs wagging tail can swipe just about anything in range!), you spilled coffee on it or worst of all… It grows legs and vanishes when the previous householder moves out. 😞 So what can you do if you're in need of a new IHD or just fancy a spare one? Read on to find out! Introduction and acknowledgement  But first, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Blastoise186, one of the forum volunteers who helps out on the OVO Forum. With over 18 months of experience and two Chameleon IHD6 (named the Kecleon Brothers) to play with, I’ve learned a lot about how these devices wor

I'd like to install a 22v EV charger and a kiln at home so it’s probably time for 3-phase electrics - but I have solar panels (inherited rental arrangement) - what are the knock on effects of going 3-phase?Here’s my initial thoughts for things to investigate.  What am I missing and what do I need to consider/ask - and who do I need to involve? I’d really appreciate advice so I can go into this with my eyes open.replace current consumer unit replace current smart meter (fairly old) - OVO says they don’t have any 3 phase meters - should I accept this or try to find someone who can do this? replace solar inverter? anything else ref solar panels connections? any rewiring needed in general? - is that likely? install of EV charger install of battery (one day! - not permitted under solar rental agreement) install of kilnanything else?​@Transparent

Hi Everyone,I just need some advice, our oil boiler was causing problems earlier on this year and has since been condemned. The council seem to want to fit us with an Air Source Heat Pump rather than an oil boiler....which I know the reasons for, but I am  not entirely sure whether this is going to be appropriate for the property where we live or for the fact  that my wife has disabilities and respiratory  problems. Our windows are draughty and we have had damp issues in the past. It is a very small bungalow admittedly, but will it be efficient enough in the winter months?  Can anyone advise me please? Many Thanks.