Hi all, first post so apologies if any mistakes.

Firstly thanks seem to be in order to @Blastoise186 for your work.

I live in Aberdeenshire with THTC heating currently on the normal 24hr and Off-peak circuits. Ovo have booked us in for a Smart Meter install for later in the month and onto an Economy 10 tarriff. 

My understanding is that in a ‘normal’ install the off peak hours of Economy 10 etc would apply to the whole house circuit as most don't have an Off-peak circuit. This would break our heating. 

My question. When the THTC meter is replaced with an Economy 10 Smart Meter is the current Off-peak circuit wired to the meter second output so that the Off-peak circuit is only energised during the 10 off peak hours? 

Thanks in advance, Simon.

Hey @ByeeTHTC ,

My understanding is that OVO has considered that exact possibility. The way they can solve it is to basically wire up the meter so the physical wiring is identical to what you have now and then simply configure it in software to run the Off-Peak circuits only at the right times.

Thanks :) I wonder if there’s a way to be sure? If this isn't the case then it’s no solution. A previous tenant opted for PAYG so hopefully that won't complicate things too.

Thanks for your reply.

I have my sources. Very well placed contacts within OVO to be exact. :)

And there’s a small possibility I may have broken into OVO’s Smart Meter Lab a couple of months ago and fiddled about with the exact setup that’s about to be installed in your place…

It’s possible that an external contactor might be used in the new setup, but that’d be controlled by the meter anyway so it’d act as if it were part of the meter itself.

Hah, perfect thank you. Apologies for suspicion it’s only as the solution has been so long coming and failure will make for a cold winter with a disabled wife.

An update on my situation…

I previously sought advice on this forum and elsewhere regarding my request to replace my THTC meter with a regular smart meter and get off the THTC tariff. I raised a case and also a formal complaint.

Last week, I was advised to "contact us to have the meters either removed or upgraded to smart anytime."

Fantastic news, right?

Except...

Today, I was contacted by an Advanced Complaints Advisor (or someone with a similar title) who informed me that I cannot have a smart meter. Apparently, there's an "infrastructure problem."

When asked for details, the advisor couldn't explain the specific issue, but the bottom line is I can't get a smart meter.

I suspect the problem is related to the RTS signal, or its replacement the “Smart Metering Wide Area Network”, which I’m guessing isn't available at my location.

This likely means any new smart meter wouldn’t be able to send readings to Ovo.

If that's the case, why can't I get a smart meter, go onto a single tariff, and manually submit readings?

If I understand correctly, if your home is outside the Smart Metering Wide Area Network, you're out of luck. No smart meter for you.

The advisor mentioned that the target for resolving this "infrastructure problem" is June 2025.

To tell the truth, I’ve had so many variations in the information I’m being supplied with I have no idea who or what to believe anymore.

In the meantime, I'm stuck with a tariff I don't want, paying significantly higher prices than I could get elsewhere in the market, and with no option to change suppliers because I have two meters.

BTW, the neighbour up the road has a smart meter. It works just fine.

Time to contact the Ombudsman?

Just spoke to someone in Squad70.

He tells me that right now (and for the foreseeable future) NO THTC meters are currently being replaced because of a technical issue that he could not describe to me.

He said 100,000 people either are (i.e. have a problem with their smart meter) or will be potentially affected (i.e. won’t get a smart meter).

So, now I’m unsure whether I can’t get a meter because I’m out of the Smart Metering Wide Area Network or because of this other, unspecified problem?

It’ll be fixed by June 2025.

Hey @monster9, 

I've raised this with our infrastructure team in charge of the rollout and communications we've been putting out for them. They've looked at your case and advised that our path for you has stayed the same. They are currently rolling this out to customers, which began this month. As you can understand, this will require many resources, such as engineers, to complete, so they're rolling this out steadily across the affected customers.

If you live in a load-managed area, the team is still working towards a solution but is confident that they'll have news to share soon. We'll again update the Forum.

I understand that you've proactively contacted our Customer Care teams, and they've sadly given incorrect advice, for which I can only apologise. We're going to work with our frontline customer-facing teams so that they have a better understanding of the rollout and can avoid any misadvice going forward.

We, as the Forum Team, have been pushing for this for a few months as a transparent approach to updating on RTS/THTC issues. This has yet to be communicated to other teams; hence, we need to work on our internal communications to all work as one.

What this means for you and others:
You'll be contacted shortly to let you know it's time for your meter to be exchanged. The team is working through the list as efficiently as they can, so we ask you to bear with us a little longer, and we'll work on resolving this for you.

I hope this helps, and again, we're sorry for any inconvenience.

Thanks for this information.  Can I ask how we will be contacted? I ask this because my online OVO account now has the option of booking a smart meter installation whereas I previously did not have that option.  The webpage states
 

Please call us as soon as you can

Your meter setup is a little different to other homes, so we need to book you in on the phone.

Please call us on 0333 034 1622

As you can see this contradicts what you advise above.  Do we have to call the phone number shown or will OVO contact us by email, letter phone etc.?

The initial letter/email will invite you to contact OVO - you then need to make contact to sort things out.

As metalsman says, THTC has the great advantage that you can use panel heaters at the cheap rate 24/7. Is this going to disappear when OVO installs our smart meter? We are supposed to be getting a smart meter for Economy 7 installed on October 17, but OVO have not offered us any discussion on other tariffs or how we can come anywhere near the advantages of THTC. Can a smart meter be reprogrammed after it is installed? Any advice would be most welcome. 

Hi @JohnMcD ,

If you’ve not been offered THTC as part of the upgrade, then it’s probably because THTC will no longer be supported in your area at all going forward. If memory serves, it’s not necessarily OVO’s decision either - the DNO may have requested this.

Ultimately, THTC is usually terrible value compared to other options these days. If you tell us what you’ve got in your current setup, we can advise further.

Thank you for your quick reply. We have 2 meters: a standard one and an RTS one. Into the RTS one are wired ALL our heating devices. We also have solar panels and a battery and OVO have persistently refused to acknowledge our input to the grid and pay us anything for it. Here's a photo of the setup

.

JohnMcD wrote:

Thank you for your quick reply. We have 2 meters: a standard one and an RTS one. Into the RTS one are wired ALL our heating devices. We also have solar panels and a battery and OVO have persistently refused to acknowledge our input to the grid and pay us anything for it. Here's a photo of the setup

.

I was offered e7 or e10 only and wasn't asked anything about my current setup which is the same as yours but without solar panels. I asked if we would lose the 24hr panel and focal point heating element of THTC and was told we would. I opted for e10 as we are retired so would suit us better. Just as well I had done my homework before phoning as the advisor really only wanted to make a smart meter appointment. I was told the person who would change my meters would explain everything.  This forum has been great.

Howdy!

Just thought I’d also swing by to add something that I didn’t see mentioned yet. Getting FiT/SEG while on RTS Meters is unfortunately something that snarls you up in circular dependency issues and I don’t think it’s all that easy to get unfortunately - especially because SEG requires a Smart Meter or a suitable Export Meter - but in real terms actually requires a Smart Meter and you can’t get a Smart Meter until your RTS Meter is eligible to be upgraded - and you can’t upgrade an RTS Meter until the right Smart Meter is available to replace it.

You can kinda see where that rabbit warren goes. Once you’re on a Smart Meter, I imagine getting SEG will be 1,000% easier so you may want to try again after that’s done.

OVO will have already known you were on THTC before you booked the upgrade - if memory serves it would have been flagged up to the agent you spoke to almost immediately. The reason you didn’t get offered to keep THTC is because it’s going away completely for almost everyone, the only folks who’ll be keeping it are a small group in Northern Scotland (for which it’ll remain their only option at the moment).

While you do lose the 24 Hour rate when moving to E7/E10, you do gain something else which may help to balance the books. Unlike THTC, the cheaper E7/E10 Off-Peak rates apply to ALL your usage during Off-Peak hours, not just heating/hot water stuff. Please feel free to take advantage of those hours to do useful stuff with heavy appliances as that’s how you’ll get the most out of them.

If you ever need a hand with anything else at all, we’re here for you so please do feel free to swing by anytime. If we can help you out, we definitely will. :)

When my wife phoned OVO to arrange for the installation of a smart meter, they offered her only Economy 7 to replace our THTC. I'm thinking E10 would be better for us. (Like Joycie, we are retired and are in much of the day, especially in winter. ) But I don't know. The tariff rates my wife was quoted for E7 were:

Peak rate: 25p per unit.

Off peak: 14.2p per unit.

Standing charge: 59.25p per day.

Would the rates for E10 be different?

Can Blastoise advise?

It’s possible that some kind of DNO restriction meant you could only get E7.

That’s all I know.

You can see all of OVO’s tariffs in your region on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy. Select Electricity only, then use the filter to select Multirate and your preferred payment method. It’s possible, though, that not all of them are available to you for various reasons. 

The rates on that page are all exclusive of VAT, so be sure to compare like to like.

So got my Smartmeter installed to replace THTC this morning. 
Now have no heating as not on E10 as advised just seems to be on single standard tariff. 
Bet this will be fun to sort out. Initial call wants to wait and see but no heating isn’t good. 

Seems like we’re likely suffering from what happened in this thread

Not sure where to go to get this fixed? Any help very much appreciated.

Congratulations on your new meter! It’s early days, and the installation engineers and their guides at HQ will still be learning how to deal with the myriad problems they’re bound to encounter, so don’t lose heart yet. 

Could you post a couple of photos, one close-up of the meter so we can see its display and other markings, and the other of the whole meter box/backboard so we can see the way it’s wired up? 

If it has little LED indicator lights, what are they called and what are they doing?

Did you get an IHD? What is that doing, if so? What sort is it?

Last, where are you in the country - postcode region, for example?  

We may have some ideas after hearing what you’ve got to say.

Thanks, pics attached hopefully. The WAN & HAN systems are working as both have updated balance and popups since installation and talking to Ovo. The IHD seems to be working ok. I’m in Aberdeenshire, AB43.

Thanks - that looks familiar. I have the same model of meter (but not that LRR communications hub) and you’ve probably also discovered from the thread you referred to why you have no heating yet. 

There are still a couple of pits to fall into even if you persuade Support to get the ALCS properly configured to switch the heating circuits on and off three times a day at the right times . The meter register settings have to be right, too, because otherwise your billing won’t be. 

You’ve already checked your online account; on the Plan page, do the tariff and timings look right? We’ve seen cases where the customer was expecting to be on Economy 10 but was in fact on an Economy 7 tariff, which could prove ruinously expensive. Heaters were charging at the right times, but some of the night-time and all of the daytime heating consumption was being charged at the peak rate. You don’t want that to happen!

Thank you. I’m trying to talk with someone right now but they have no idea what they’re talking about and won’t transfer me elsewhere. 
As far as I can see the meter is programmed as a standard single tariff. 
Could being PAYG (previous occupant insisted on this and I couldn’t get it changed while on THTC) be a problem? All this was discussed with OVO previously though.