As part of the upgrade, everything will be done in one go - including selecting a new energy plan.

Please call OVO on 0330 303 5063 or the number in the letter/email to arrange this.

Cheers Blastoise 186

I think the advice is to wait until the new meter is installed and working and then compare the plan it’s set to to any others that may be available to you. Since there are only a few days left of the current price cap period, the rates offered for 1 October onwards will be the ones to look at. These may figure on OVO’s tariff pages a few days (often a couple of weeks) before then, so keep a close eye on them. 

The best plan to go for depends on what sort of tariff (rates and timings) you’re currently enjoying, if it matches your requirements. For example, Economy 10 allows for a daytime boost for storage heaters at the cheaper rate, while Economy 7 doesn’t. The ‘cheap’ rate varies a great deal from plan to plan, so you’d better have to hand the numbers for your actual consumption in kWh over the past year* at both peak and offpeak times in order to be able to compare the various plans on offer. 

You can see all of OVO’s tariffs on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy, while using the Get a quote page gives you a simple comparison between recommended plans. Beware that the rates on the plans page are exclusive of VAT while those on the quote page include VAT. 

You may be able to pick a likely-looking plan before the meter exchange, in which case you could tell Support what you want. There’s no guaranteeing that the message will get all the way to those involved, but it’s worth trying. 
  

*  Dig out your latest bill and the one for the same period a year ago. Subtract the latest closing meter readings from the ones from last year to find the annual consumption. 

Hi Abby, can you help? Just had a visit from MDS who can do nothing for this problem so left again. I can’t get past the initial call handlers who only book an emergency visit and do not listen to anything else.

If it helps since the last message I’ve determined the meter is switching the storage heaters circuits in. But on E7 times and with no E7 tariff. They should be E10 timings with E10 tariff.

Do they really think all these  difficult non-standard situations can be sorted by June 2025? I doubt it.

I believe they will. The absolute final deadline to finish decommissioning is September 2025 - there is a built-in tolerance to tidy up stragglers as part of that. However, June 2025 should still be considered the deadline for booking upgrades because there WILL be a rush right towards the end.

Well there are likely to be tens of thousands just in Aberdeenshire.

There’s a lot of engineers at OVO’s disposal. More can be drafted in from around the country if needed.

Would help if a job was done right first time and call handlers could direct problems.

The telemetry gained from multiple sources - including the OVO Forum - is being fed back into the system and is being actively used to resolve that stuff.

As with any big project, teething issues are inevitable.

Here’s a suggestion then! Why not get the problems & bugs sorted out before pushing us to get these meters installed before a probable unobtainable deadline next June. Not just THTC but all the systems whether E10, Superdeal or whatever. I suspect the incentives for OVO to install smart meters are financial, hence pushing installations before older systems are ready & proven to receive them without problems.

That’s what the industry spent over a decade figuring out - but you can’t 100% test for absolutely every possible snag upfront. Some stuff will always slip the net.

Hey @ByeeTHTC 

Sorry you’ve not been able to get any further forward with this. 

I’ll have our Forum_Support reach out to help get this resolved for you. Keep an eye out for a private message soon here: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview.

Thank you Abby 

So thanks to help from @Abby_OVO this situation is probably resolved.

All advice from phone mail & engineer visits was completely wrong and a waste of time. The meter was just installed with the wrong programming which back office needed to update as I first thought and told advisors many times. 

Many thanks. I’d hope lessons are learnt but judging by the many threads here and talking to other customers they aren’t.

I would be interested in hearing if anybody who migrated from SSE on the Suoerdeal  tariff running with 2 meters has successfully had an E10 smart meter installed without problems. I feel I am being pushed into this upgrade before it has been tested & installed correctly. In fact a ‘guinea pig’!

Just a word of caution - 99.9999999999% of OVO’s happy customers never post here, so we’re unable to give you a totally balanced view just from the Forum alone. By the same token, 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of folks who had their problems solved never come back to tell us, so it’s also hard to judge that metric reliably unless you have total access to absolutely everything.

It’s gotta happen sooner or later I’m afraid - it’s either do the upgrade or risk your heating/hot water getting permanently knocked out. We cannot make any promises whatsoever as to what your specific RTS Meter will do post-shutdown or how it’ll cope with/handle having no control signals so we have to assume the worst-case scenario of the meter completely bricking itself immediately.

Sometimes, it’s also better to play the canary role and beta test new solutions out in the field before a wider roll-out. OVO knows I’m always up for letting them beta test stuff with me because ultimately I want the same thing as OVO does - the opportunity to squash showstopping bugs before they snarl up absolutely everyone is extremely beneficial.

Just an update after my new smartmeter installation today (17/9).  The engineer came on time, was very informative and knowledgeable, obviously sussed that I was a bit apprehensive. He explained briefly what he was going to do, confirmed the smartmeter was programmed for E10 as requested and proceeded to remove our 2 meters. After all installation was complete he explained, to me and hubby, very simply what he had done. He also said that he had tested the on/ off switch for our heating and water and it was working as it should. Showed us how to operate the IHD and gave us a few tips re lecky usage.  So far, the meter has switched between off peak and peak, as it should, so I am very relieved. Thought it might be nice to hear a positive on the THTC epic!

Thanks Joyce for your positive reply, good of you to post. I assume that having 2 meters you were on Superdeal or something similar. My situation is now on hold for probably some time as I require a DNO attendance before a smart meter fitting. Time frame for DNO to attend could be 2 months so do not expect the smart meter to be in & running until 2025! Not risking an incorrect meter during the winter!

Smart meter installed today. Seemed a bit tricky and took 2 hours but things seem to be working so far. Engineer local and very pleasant. Left everything tidy.  Time will tell if the timing and all the connections to the solar panels and EV work as they should.

Thanks, @Cassie511, for reporting back. Please come back again if you encounter any hiccups down the line; things might take a few days to settle down completely, so no rush!

Hi @Cassie511,

We appreciate you coming back to share your feedback, this is useful for others that may be in the same position.

I’m glad to hear that it went well so far. Please let us know if you come into any issues.

Just dropping in to say thanks to the forum!

Standard smart meter was fitted on Tuesday, all went well apart for a heated discussion that I didn't want a 5 port meter fitted!

The smart meter started sending data I can see on the bright app (although it's skipped Wednesday's data!)....not sure how long it will be for OVO to catch up with meter change?

Thanks again for your help and sanity check.

Six weeks is the industry average 

So I got the email asking me to phone OVO to make an appointment to get my father’s THTC meter replaced. I called OVO straight away - only to be told there are no appointments available. 

I Then followed the link on the front post of this thread - again tells me to call OVO but to have taken a reading and have models of storage heaters and type of water heating available. None of this was asked in the phone call and now sitting in limbo again. 

Going to read the rest of this thread, but have been given no tariff info, and don’t know if it would have been simpler to have an economy 7 or economy 10 meter fitted which then means not tied into a single energy supplier.  This is very frustrating - I will try replying to the email OVO have sent us with information required and asking about tariff information and how the new meter will work. 

Give it a bit more time before calling again - more appointment slots will open up soon.

Long story short, the new meter would be a Smart Meter that does everything all existing Smart Meters do in the same way they do it for Economy 7/10 - the Meter will control everything locally without the need for remote signals. Otherwise, it’ll behave like THTC in that heating/hot water will run at the agreed times only.

The tariff it’ll run on will be whatever tariff you agree to migrate to. We can’t say here for sure what you’ll get though, as it’s account-specific stuff so you need to ask OVO.