RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service) Shutdown Update

I don’t think having the meter in prepayment mode makes much difference to how it functions as regards timing, but I admit I hadn’t taken that on board. If you’re at all technically-minded, I’d suggest you download the manual for your meter and spend some time familiarizing yourself with it. It’s an incredibly complicated piece of kit as you’d soon find out.

You should have somewhere a document giving the name of the tariff you’re on and what rates you should be paying at what times. Are you saying that there are no such details on the plan page of your account? This is what I could find:
  

Were you calling OVO to ask for the smart team to send the ECAUL request to your meter to configure the ALCS? Or have you got past that and on to other things?

Thanks again :) 

Firstly on PAYG OVO doesn't show anything online. Nothing. I previously had a credit account so I can login but it just says 

So the tariff you show is what I would expect to be on, I don’t know. There hasn't been any correspondence about the change.

Secondly I tried to ask for the ALCS to be updated but the call handler didn't understand what I was asking for. They've booked an emergency appointment for this evening but I can’t imagine a subcontractor can reprogram the meter and tbh it’s looking like they won't turn up anyway.

My thoughts at the moment, which I couldn't convey on the phone as they wouldn't accept they could reprogram a meter, are that the meter model is most likely correct and is correctly wired but it just isn't set for the tariff it should be.

You have to know how much a unit of electricity is costing you. You say the IHD is working. Somewhere in one of its menus you should be able to find the tariff.  You didn’t say which type of IHD you got ...

[Sigh!] We’ve heard this before, too. There’s nothing a visiting engineer can do that the support agent should be able to: get hold of the smart team, give them the MPAN and/or MSN and ask them to send the ECAUL request to set up the ALCS timings for Economy 10 in your region. I’d be surprised if there’s anyone around to do that after office hours. You might make a note of the two numbers so you can rattle them off along with your OVO account no. whenever someone asks for them:

• MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number) - the unique identifier for the electricity supply to your house (you only need to remember the 13-digit bottom line 🙂);
• MSN (Meter Serial Number) - the unique identifier for the meter itself. You can see that at the top of the meter just below the communications hub, starting with 21M.

Much appreciated again. Not at home to show you but the HID is this one. 
 

Yes I can find the tariff on that (standard at about 22p) but with payg an online account just doesn’t exist. 
 

Unsurprisingly the engineer didn’t make any form of contact last night. At least that’s another £30. Couldn’t get another appointment today yet as out till later but will try this afternoon. Can’t get anyone on the phone to put me through to Smart or understand that it can be done remotely at all. Also confusion when the E10 tariff can be applied to the account but I’ll argue that another day. 
 

You'd think this was something I’d initiated not OVO after, supposedly, lots of work and testing to replace THTC. 

Hey @ByeeTHTC 

I’m really sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve been having since the smart meter was installed. Sadly meter exchanges with THTC meters do quite often come with some problem along the way, as Firedog mentioned.

I’m glad Firedog was able to help advice you on the right path. Please do keep us update with how you get on getting the remote commands sent by the Support Team.

Thanks but I can’t get them to do anything remotely. 

Probably not just THTC setups! I am on Superdeal & had a E10 smart meter appointment due today but on the engineers arrival, as I expected would happen, he was unable to carry out the change due to our setup! In the past few weeks since the smart meter was offered I have several times suggested for an engineer to first visit to ascertain the setup before the booking or at least get me to send a photograph. Both suggestions were rejected as not necessary! Apparently our setup is unusual (as I have frequently told OVO & before them SSE) & requires a 3 phase system before a smart meter can be fitted. That requires a visit from the grid people before rearranging another smart meter appointment! Wasted day staying in & time spent preparing the meter ‘room’ for OVO. Do they really think all these  difficult non-standard situations can be sorted by June 2025? I doubt it.

Being offered a smart meter.

Currently on simpler energy plan THTC. As I don’t have smart meter yet cannot access ovo app as doesn’t support these old meters so have to use online account. 
question is once the smart meter is installed how do I arrange a new energy plan as obviously the current energy plan will become obsolete 

looking at the online account there is nowhere for you to change to a new energy plan once smart meter installed 

‘’under plan’’ online account it only shows your current energy plan ie THTC 

Do I have to contact ovo energy after the meter is installed and if so what time period after the meter is installed do I contact ovo to arrange new energy plan to suite the smart meter 

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!