Green tech & greener living

HelloApologies, but I cannot give as full details as I would like, because it is difficult to use a computer owing to ill health.I stay in a council house in Scotland and am affected by the RTS switch off. I arranged for a smart metre to be installed in February 2025. Unfortunately the job could not be done because the fuse box is too near the piece of equipment that needs to be replaced.For the last 14 months I have been trying my best to get the council to do the job but to no avail. At one point I was told it was just awaiting scheduling. Over the past few weeks I have even tried contacting my local councillors and even they are not replying.Today I received an email from Ovo telling me to arrange a smart metre installation because the switch of date is now 02/06/26. How reliable is this date?We cannot lose our heating because the household is made up of an elderly person and a disabled person.Any advice?Thanks

When heating is on, the water starts to heat up as well, but it is not on the controller - water is shown as OFF. Looks like something is wrong with the settings. Please Help!Remote controller: Switchee Hot water set 45. NOT legionella mode  

Thinking of buying a 22 Kia EV3 never had electric cars previously are chargers specific? I’m a OAP and a little lost by it all. I see OVO do an instal service which would be easier than looking round. Any particular charger best of those mentioned. I won’t be travelling far local mostly and maybe a holiday so I won’t be needing the charge anywhere service. There is one thing that does concern me, if I change supplier will the charger still work? Thanks for any pointers

If I win the lottery and pay OVO £8700 for a 12 panel PV Solar array on my large 25 degree pitched south facing roof plus a 5.2kWh storage battery in my integral garage plus an estimated £5000 for an 11kWh ASHP (after £7500 govt grant) plus an estimated £5000 for new radiators and hot water cylinder, can I expect to be effectively self sufficient during 9 months of the year? 

Okay, here goes... Smart meters installed in June 2019, except they weren't commissioned until January 2020. Since then my meter readings are being sent hourly to OVO and my usage is visible online after 24 hours, but my IHD is only showing gas usage. I've asked the email team , about showing electricity usage on the IHD and after 16 days advised that they'd requested my IHD's firmware to be refreshed and I should wait 48 hours and turn my IHD off and on. I've tried this but after 3 days nothing has changed and I'm looking to try and resolve this before the anniversary of the installation (although maybe I'll get a prize for the longest smart meter installation?) Can anyone suggest a solution? Many thanks  

The Charge Anywhere app gives a detailed breakdown of all charging sessions. Is it possible to download it in a form that would make it useful for analysis later? I can download individual journey time/distance/energy used data from my car and the charging data would be complementary to that. I’m a bit of a spreadsheet nerd - I admit it! I have been recording fossil fuel use in my cars for years and would like to continue.Thanks,

Afternoon, After a few hrs of light reading, I think I am up to speed on the OVO CA wotsit. I do not want to pay for a package, so it’s my understanding that if I plug the EV in then OVO can see it’s the EV charging and will bill me for that @ 14p . My lad is buying the EV, he’s getting an MG4. Now, these aren’t mentioned anywhere on OVO so I assume MG cannot link with the CA, so I need one of the three chargers listed? Didn’t realise they were so expensive!If I just get an OHME charger which is cheaper through the dealer he’s getting the car from, what exactly do I lose out on? The 14p? I can see why I’ve not made the switch to EVs myself. Blimey. 

Has anyone noticed that the billing details has an entry for OVO Charge Anytime that is always zero, and another entry for Charge Anytime Credit that shows the savings on the EV tariff?I assume that the OVO Charge Anytime needs to be removed since it was replaced with OVO Charge.For example: Charge Anytime Credit -£20.15 VAT 5% of £99.90 £5.00 Power Move -£2.00 Power Move Subscription (includes VAT) £0.00 OVO Charge Anytime £0.00 Total -£17.15

Hi everyone,My old prepayment meter has gone into fail safe mode, and it’s neigh impossible to arrange replacement (it’ll be a smart meter) as it’s on a shared fuse. I’m looking for advice on who’s responsible for what, and what my opetions are to get out of this mess. Here’s how my issue unfolded:January: supllier’s engineer came to replace the meter, but abandoned job due to the shared fuse. we contacted the DNO (from my phone), the engineer asked for my supply to be unlooped. February: DNO (SP Energy Networks,  Scotlland) replied that they ’don’t see a strong reason to unloop’ and that my supplier should organise power outage with the neighbours. My supplier asked me to organise outage with the neighbours.  I tried, but failed to get hold of anyone next door. I asked my supplier to organise safe isolation or unlooping with the DNO. They said they will ask their meter operator, but answer is still pending. March: My supplier sent an unannounced Revenue Protection people (haste ldt),

Why is there no option to change my smart meter installation date online? Despite their text massage saying I would be able to change it online. It’s Saturday and I want to change my appointment from Monday to Tuesday, but if the only option is to phone them then I can’t do that until Monday morning since the phone lines are closed at weekends, which is less than 24 hours notice, and hence a  £30 fine. 

Hi,We had a smart meter installed a few years ago and it has never been able to send readings automatically.  It is a Aclara 1411-B SMETS S2. The engineer said that it was due to poor wifi/mobile signal.Since it was fitted, we have moved onto ‘superfast’ fibre wifi and the mobile signal has been significantly improved but the meter is still not communicating.  I have completed the ‘healthcheck’ and see no reason (WAN is flashing every 5 secs and the HEB is on constantly) We want to look at changing our car for an electric or plug-in hybred but there is no point if the SMART meter is not working.  How can we ‘restart’ comms ?Any suggestions much appreciated.

Error 220so I had no joy charging our car on the  anytime app so called and was instructed to log out and reconnect with the zappi 2.1 it worked but only for one day . Now when I try the same thing it will not let me into the app saying error 220 . I am not stuck with no communication with Ovo due to being only a weekday support. So I have to go to a supermarket to charge and waste money again after paying for the highest monthly tariff. Any thoughts? I just want to be able to plug iin and charge is this too much to ask?

Hi, I have a solis 5kw hybrid inverter paired with 16.1k fogstar eco battery, but know the Inverter will not let the charge deplet from the battery. It worked fine until it reached 100 % at which point in just stays at 100%and draws power from the grid. Thanks for any help as this is driving me crazy. 

Over the past few days, as the cap on energy is dropping in Apr 26, Octopus have announce their overnight rate, is dropping from 7p to as low as 3.5p for some customers, but also 5p for others.Do OVO have any plans to drop Anytime from 14p, or are they just going to pocket the extra profit ?

I have 9 slim so called ‘convection’ style radiators in my house, that appear as perforated panels backed up by a matrix of 15mm copper or steel pipes running vertically from the top to bottom tubes with thermosatatic TRVs fitted by me with a water pump primed, Gas fired C/H boiler in my garage.The gas boiler is no longer servicable and I have voluntarily swithced it off at the gas mains supply but kept my dual fuel tariff because the house has a gas cooker access point, currently capped in our kitchen and gas piping feeding the garage boiler that runs along our lounge wall and could easily be extended through the breeze block dividing wall to run a lovely powerful balanced flue gas fire in our lounge at a future date. My idea is to get an ASHP installed to replace the old gas boiler but wonder about my rads being thermally unsuitable.They are all in good condition and I added corrosion inhibitor several years ago after cleaning the accumulated black magnetite sludge out of each one by

Thinking of getting a KIA EV5. Happy to get a Hypervolt 3 charger but I do not want a monthly plan or smart charging. I just want to be able to plug in and charge overnight on cheap rate. Although I think I can get electricity at 14p KWH? Is that correct.Is this rate limited to normal off peak hours or something else. If my son comes to stay will he be able to charge his KIA EV6.It sounds as if I will have at least 3 apps. KIA, Hypervolt and OVO. Which one would I use to schedule charging. Also factor in my Duracell app although I don’t want to use electric from solar panels. Hope this makes sense all very strange for an EV newbie.thanks

I seem to have to wrestle with OVO every year these days before I get a satisfactory resolution of my rights as a loyal customer. Is now a good time (wrt disruption in global energy, climate change arguments, resale value of my 1983 house etc) to consider ditching my old gas boiler and upgrading to an ASHP with a brand new well insulated hot water cylinder/immersion heater to ‘top up’ bathing and washing up water etc plus maybe even new more suitable radiators? If so which are the best suppliers and installer of ASHPs. Daikin, Vaillant, Worcester - Bosch, Mitsubishi  et alia or even consider the Octopus system solution?

A recent MCS survey on my property - by a reputable installer - came out with the figure of 22kw needed for our heat pump installation. (Our home is a large Edwardian semi-detached and about 350msq.) It’s such a large figure that they have suggested 2 heat pumps of 11kw each working in tandem. I suspect this is excessive and my own data from recorded gas usage would suggest much lower. We use consistently between 31000 and 33000 kWh of gas per year. Using the ‘rule of thumb’ guide and dividing that figure by 2900 would suggest closer to 12kw. I also have data from the coldest day we have had in the house - 15 December 22 when the temperature dropped to -7 all day in a cold snap. On that day we used 375 kWh of gas which divided by 24 hours would still come in under 16kw. We usually keep our house at a comfortable 19C which is fine for us but I know the survey factors in warmer temperatures. Nevertheless the discrepancy seems considerable. Am I missing something? Would welcome comments f

We are in a remote rural Scottish location which surprisingly qualifies for a Warmworks grant to instal solar PV. We have to have what they decide, which is “9 x 450W JA solar PV panels” on a west facing roof plus a “Duracell Bundle” battery and inverter.   I don't have any details of what these are, so can't look up what they do in detail.  We can't chose the installer. The installation will be next week - 15 & 16 September.We are on OVO’s Economy10 tariff with an Aclara SGM1416-B smart meter and storage heaters (no boiler, no gas).  1. The main question is - do we need to inform OVO that we are having panels and a battery?2. We are at home most of most days, so can often use more electricity when the sky is bright. Is that the best strategy for economy?3. I won't know until the system is installed next week whether      •    the panels can return power to the grid if the battery is full     •    the battery can be charged from off-peak electricityAre these features usually expens

 Updated on 17/04/26 by Abby_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 work and many of the quirks of using them. I see a lot of questions across multiple forums about how to get a replacement IHD if yours breaks or goes missing, s

I have an Ohme charger - not necessarily my choice but came with the car - and after it was installed and I set up the Ohme app to manage it, I found that it was not supported by Charge Anytime. OK, not a problem, and I have CA configured to talk directly to my car which works fine. However, the Ohme app allowed me to lock the charger so that it cannot be used by anyone else. I had to remove this lock to allow CA to take charge of charging.My question is, therefore - is the charger locked against unauthorised use? After all, I found that when initially set up with CA but with my car location wrong (so not recognised when charging) I could still plug in and charge with no additional action on my part. My charger is pretty well hidden so not likely to be used by the odd passer-by so I’m not very worried about this but I would still like to know! Is there a CA setting that I have missed that allows me to lock the charger except when specifically permitted, or does it recognise only my car

I’m trying to register with a third party to access my usage data. They ask for the MPAN (which is fine) and the MAC Address of the IHD.I’ve entered the MAC Address from the IHD I have here, but it’s getting declined. Just tried to explain this to OVO, which resulted in me being told my IHD no longer works (it does) and I can only access my usage data using the OVO App.Pulling my hair out with these folks at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My EV charger was installed yesterday and after some fiddling about, I seem to have my Charge Anywhere plan and app working and this afternoon put some charge into my car. However, I do have an Ohme charger which was supplied as part of the car package and I realise that this does not work with CA; I have connected my app to my EV and that seems to be working fine - I can see state of charge, etc.My question is whether I should be able to see the record of the charging session - which completed successfully - immediately, or if I need to wait some time for it to appear. I was expecting to see the result of the charging immediately, so that I can track, for example, how much credit is left for the month. My other worry is whether or not the charging was actually done via my CA account or at my usual per-unit cost - how can I tell?Thanks for any assistance to someone completely new to EVs and charging!

Hi all, I’m in the process of researching solar and a couple of installers have suggested fitting Fox ESS batteries. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with them and any feedback, negative or positive, to share? In addition, can anyone explain to me about what I should be looking for in a tariff once we have the solar panels and battery installed? I do have a quote for solar from OVO so would that be a lot better than if I went with, say, Octopus? Thanks in advance,Hollie