RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service) Shutdown Update

This is brilliant to hear @Dunny-side-A & @metalsman. Thanks for the update! 😊

I called today about my dad and uncle’s meter change appointment, what an amazingly good experience compared to my last call when 3 different people failed to help me. 

Today got a lovely woman called Lauren, who immediately knew what I was calling about, extremely knowledgable, and confirmed the meter change engineer would program all devices to the chosen tarriff economy hours. 

My dad has appointment Oct 31st and my uncle on 2nd Dec. I will be there on 31st so will report back then. 

Hey @thelearner

I’m happy to hear that you had a great experience with Lauren and that they were able to give you all the information that you needed. 

Keep us updated with the results of your meter replacements 🙂

I have a relative who has Economy 10 with an old SSE-era RTS meter. She has long wanted to have a smart meter installed due to mobility issues and consequent difficulties in reading the current meter, but I have told her not to, because she would lose her E10 tariff.

I now understand that Ovo will be able to offer E10 on a smart meter, but she has yet to be contacted regarding a meter switch. She is in MPAN area 17.

Should she wait for a letter, or contact Ovo? I understood that Ovo were writing to all RTS customers, starting from August, but she has heard nothing yet? Can you give any information regarding  progress on this rollout? 

I have been asking OVO to replace my telemeter and single rate meter with a single meter for the best part of this year. After 4 failed ‘smart’ appointments, they wrote to me telling me they need to do exactly what I had been asking them to do, as the RTS would soon become obsolete. They duly booked my appointment for this Wednesday. I had a long chat with an OVO customer advisor, going through the various tariffs and choosing the most suitable one. This was in early September. 

I was very grateful to receive three emails reminding me of this exciting appointment, and as the day dawned even closer I then received a couple of texts - the latest on Monday. At this point my excitement was getting too hard to contain. As Wednesday arrived I was filled with hope, I would soon have a single functioning Smart meter, not two meters with one (the Telemeter) not working. I could plan to have new electric radiators fitted. 

Alas, my excitement led to nothing - no engineer. Apparently, the engineer decided to record on his work sheet that I had cancelled my appointment before the day. Just a made up excuse to not bother coming. The next free appointment is December. Given I have no centralised heating in the house, just expensive fan heaters, I can’t explain how disappointed I am. 

I know it doesn’t answer your query for your mum. Just advising you not to get too excited with anything to do with OVO and meter replacements. 

@macman OVO does now support Economy 10 with Smart Meters. If you didn’t get contacted yet, I recommend you get in touch with Support via 0330 303 5063 or Live Chat via https://ovoenergy.com/help . Your mum WILL be able to keep E10 as part of the migration.

Wouldn’t bother. They’ve sent me three emails now to switch,saying each time there’s available appointments in my area and when you contact to book ,they tell you there isn’t any. 


I’d suggest the emails are misleading people and thinking about complaining as it’s just a lot of hassle and stress. The documentary re smart meters on Channel 5 last night only confirms it.

@mrsparkles5481 Chances are the slots were opened up - but just got gobbled up rapidly by folks with fast fingers. It does happen!

More slots will open up ASAP.

I tried within minutes of the emails being sent ,as did many people I know in my local area,so find that hard to fathom. I will be making a complaint re the email comms as it is misleading customers in my mind.

You’re not the only ones trying to get slots though - folks across the entire country are.

Absolutely,but I still maintain OVO should NOT send emails out when it’s not true. So my complaint stands.

Hi @macman,

I can see our forum volunteer has already given some good advice here. Have you managed to get in touch with the Support team about this? Please let us know how you get on.

Hi @mrsparkles5481, 

I’m really sorry to hear this.

It may be worth contacting the Support team about this again so they can check if there any available appointments at the moment. 

Here’s a link to our complaint procedure too:

https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

Let us know how you get on.

Just a quick note to say that I had my install done this morning.

All seemed to go OK, it’s just passed 13:30 and my storage heaters have started to charge up, which seems correct for E10 with the afternoon slot 13:30 - 16:30.

Guy said mine was a straightforward change, no complications.

Time to go and put a washing on !!

Hopefully I don’t need to come back and visit this thread to complain about anything in the future, but thought it was worth reassuring those waiting that things can go smoothly !

That’s really good to hear - thanks for telling us! 

Please remember that it can take a few weeks for everything to settle down - things like billing, updates to the national database and other things that all take time - so don’t start panicking until mid-December. Keep an eye on your online account to see how things are progressing.
 

Sorry, forgot I did have one quick question. 
Do I need to submit the final readings from the 2 old THTC meters into my online account, or will the engineer have submitted them in some way ?

They tried to do ours a week ago but the guy said it was too complicated and would have to call in the experts. Our meters are in a box outside and the RTS and distribution are through the wall to the inside. I assume this was done yonks ago so that meters could be read without entering the house. 

Anyone else in Pitlochry had their meters changed this month? It’s supposed to be ‘when OVO are in our area’.

The engineer will have made a note of them and included them in his installation report. They will also appear on the Meter Exchange Label he should have left beside the new meter. If they don’t show up in your online account within a few days, call Support to check that they have them so that billing can proceed seamlessly.

[I wish I’d taken a photo of the MEX Label when I got my new meter last year - mice have eaten it!] 

That’s good to know.  I should be getting mine done this Monday.

For anyone reading this thread, it might be an idea when talking to Support about a forthcoming installation to upload a photo or two of the meters and their surroundings: close-ups of the meters, then ones showing the cables from the service head (where the main cable comes in through the wall or from underground) to the meters and from the meters to the consumer units (fuse boxes). This might avoid an unnecessary journey like the one Karen’s engineer made.

So my dad had his meter install yesterday. Before engineer arrived, I took the 2 meter readings and submitted them to his account, probably slightly less than actual final readings. 

Engineer arrived about 4.35Pm and was out of the house by 6.15PM, the first thing they do is make sure the new meter can connect to the mobile phone data network before starting install - eng said if meter does not connect they are not allowed to install. 

The engineer explained to me system works like before - there are still 2 separate circuits - off peak and peak same as THTC, and that both though are now available 24/7 - and that all economy 10 settings are programmed in the smart meter. So will watch interestingly when heaters are coming on to charge. 

I never got a chance to look at it last night, but in home display looks very good. Although my dad might just put it in a drawer. 

I will be back in today, and take some photos, I have photos pre-change. When I get meter serial number - will see if I can register it on loop energy app to see if I can monitor from there. 

thelearner - I hadn’t heard of the loop energy app. I installed it and it found my new meter that was installed yesterday. Unfortunately it can’t give accurate cost figures, as it doesn’t work with Economy 10 tariffs. It does show usage, but just the total, not the split between peak and off-peak.
It might still be useful for you though to see overall usage

This old pedant has a couple of comments:

In NE Scotland, meters connect to the smart meter Wide Area Network (WAN) over Long-Range Radio, not (yet) any mobile phone network. 

There are two separate circuits, but it’s not helpful to refer to them as peak and offpeak. The main circuit is always live, often called constant. The other is only live during the offpeak hours, turned on and off by a time switch inside the meter. This circuit is often called switched. If you look at the meter, the engineer may have marked the new cables (“tails”) to identify them*; my live tails are marked LC and LS so I can see which one feeds the constant circuit and which the switched circuit.

The switched circuit will power heating equipment, particularly storage heaters and water heaters. You may find that this equipment is also connected to the constant circuit; this allows for (a) local controls on some sorts of storage heater and (b) boost functions to deliver power (at peak rates) out of offpeak hours if necessary.

It’s important to check that the switched circuit is only live during the offpeak hours as dictated by the Economy 10 plan. 
    

*  Once upon a time, the live wires were red and neutral ones black. This all changed twenty years ago to brown (line) and blue (neutral). Some time after that, it was decided that this sort of cable should have a uniform grey sheath. Nowadays, to find out which cable will kill you if you drill through it, you have to strip the sheath off to see what colour it is underneath. 
  

For what it’s worth, there are 2 layers of insulation on these modern cables with different colours .. the theory being that you can see a break in the outer insulation before exposing the bare metal. 

Engineer arrived this morning, fine chap, first thing he did was put shoe covers on.  THTC system (in Caithness) quickly replaced with Smart Meter on Economy 10.  I switched the storage heaters on and waited for 1.30pm, the start of the ‘economy’ period and a couple of minutes later the red light came on to confirm charging.   Great stuff, happy camper...

Good to hear.  My turn on Monday.  Hope it’s as successful.  Do you also have an immersion heater?  Presumably it will also come on at these times?