RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service) Shutdown Update

Good afternoon, I live in Aberdeenshire (MPAN17)and recently had a smart meter installed.  I was like you on the THTC tariff.  Can I give you my thoughts on this issue.

On THTC you never knew how many hours of storage charging you were getting as it was weather dependent but you could have had up to 12 hours of low cost electricity (cost is a separate and controversial issue).  The weather installation controlling the time in our locality is only a couple of miles away. Water heating was controlled by a separate signal on the RTS and was for a period of 3 hours although you did have a facility for a top up at cheap rates.

My smart meter was only installed a couple of days ago but here are my experiences so far.  With Economy 10 your storage radiators have the potential to be charged for 10 hours over the 24 hour day.  If you have the old fashioned storage units your radiators will charge for the full 10 hours.  If you have the more modern HHR (high heat retention) storage units e.g. Dimplex Quantum, they have an internal thermostat which switches the power off once the radiator store is up to temperature. I have been able to prove that by using the energy meter (IHD) supplied with the new meter as you can see when the internal thermostat cuts off the power to the storage unit. The fact that my radiators do not charge for the full 10 hours has led me to experiment with switching off the supply to the radiator during the afternoon charge period (13:30 to 16:30) to see if I can still get a comfortable temperature with just a 7 hour charge. On the basis of a couple of day results I am quite optomistic but I will need to experiment for a longer time period.

I know that has been a bit of a long answer to your question but the bottom line is - yes you will not get the weather dependant charge period when you change to E10/E9/E7 but if you have a modern HHR storage radiators they will control your period of actual charge time.

Thanks ​@Blastoise186 & ​@metalsman - that fits with what I thought. My Mum’s heaters are pretty old so I’m not sure how clever they are about controlling their charging. Perhaps she’ll just need to look at the weather forecast herself and set the heat input control manually. Shame… the automated solution seemed a nice idea.

It’s probably best to maintain the set and forget behaviour once you have the settings dialled in. Fiddling with them can end up costing you a fortune, especially if they’ve worked well so far.

So my dads meter was installed on 31/10/24 and appears to be working fine. He just had an OVO engineer turn up at his door to do a smart meter install. Explained it was all completed on 31/10/24 and the OVO eng left happy. 

On Monday this week, our other relative had a brand new OVO meter engineer arrive to install the replacement THTC meters with new smart meter. Unfortunatly I was out of the country, so contacted him when I got home. The engineer told him he could not change meter as he only did single meter changes and muttered something about this being a 3 phase supply. When I am next in going to get photos, but think it is a straightforward THTC setup with 2 meters. 

In that case, if you could post those photos we can definitely check. Three-Phase THTC is extremely rare, but I’ve heard of one or two installs where it’s a thing.

Just a final update on my journey from THTC 2 meters to a single smartmeter.  Yesterday my online account started to show my smartmeter (installed Sept 17) readings including backdating bills from installation until current. Although I haven't minutely checked them they all look fine with nothing jumping out at me. I did keep a note of readings periodically just in case, but I don't think they'll be needed. So, a success story for me and I'm sure many others. Thanks to all the posters on this thread whose input was invaluable. Keep the faith.

Thank you so much for reporting back ​@Joycie 😊 This feedback will help other community members

Definitely does not look like 3 phase to me - but not a spark. 

Ah ha! Yes… That makes FAR more sense now. At first glance, this appears to be a Single-Phase RTS setup, albeit one wired up in a way that I’ve not really seen before. I can’t say for sure exactly what tariff it’s set up for, but it looks like a possible E7/E10 arrangement.

The black unit on the left is a Radio Teleswitch - it’s not a Meter as such but a supporting device that helps tell a paired/connected RTS Meter when to switch between rates.

I’ll ask ​@Lukepeniket_OVO for his thoughts. Bear with me as this may take a little time since he’s off enjoying himself and having far too much fun replacing RTS Meters right now.

Either way, just about everyone here can agree on one thing - it needs to be replaced anyway due to the RTS Shutdown. I’m 100% confident about that part!

Team! Sorry for long delays. Day job has brought me into the hub in Bristol a few times these past few weeks.

​@Jantang, initially I believed a triple MPAN was going to be the blocker. I don't believe this now to be the case. 

The E150 has a built in timeclock and won't be affected by the RTS switch off but it's always a good idea to get smart!!

You live in MPAN 17 which you are correct is a LMA (Load managed area) and thus not currently eligible for Smart. We are so close to pilot for phase 3 of our RTS rollout (LMA) that we are currently in Shetland doing these to ensure they work with our systems and the DCC. We are still on track for the June 25 countdown. Please keep an eye out for comms once you become smart eligible!

​@thelearner initially I thought it was split phase but I can see the far left fuse feeds elsewhere and not your meter installation. You should be fine with a normal engineer turning up to do the job.

Thanks ​@Lukepeniket_OVO !

Still looking to handle ​@thelearner if you can. Bear with me - Forum Sweep in progress to catch others. Me and Luke are currently scanning for other threads awaiting a reply so we may respond to other folks shortly!

I would appreciate if you could message me directly your OVO account number please 🙏 

Howdy ​@metalsman ,

Just a heads up that Luke has responded to your question. ^^^

:)

In that case, it may be that particular Engineer wasn’t ready to do this particular job yet due to lack of experience. It happens sometimes but I suspect a more experienced Engineer can probably handle it based on what Luke is saying.

We totally need to spend a day together in the Bristol office at some point! XD

How will my old (dial type) storage heaters "know" when to come on? As I understand it under the old THTC the circuit they were on only came live when the RTS switched over 

Hi ​@kbrown36 ,

Please be advised that the OVO Forum is currently in Hibernation Mode for Christmas. Responses from Forum Volunteers and Forum Moderators may be delayed at this time.

When you migrate to Smart Meters, anything that was previously controlled by RTS/THTC will remain controlled in exactly the same way - by the Meter itself. The only difference is that the Meter will do it locally without relying on remote signals.

Your storage heaters will just continue to work as they do today - the Engineer will make sure of that.

An appeal to successful RTS migrants
 

When your shiny new smart meter has settled down completely a few weeks after installation, your supply will probably have been allocated a new MPAN. The ID part of the MPAN should be the same as the one for the old non-RTS meter, but some of the other figures may have changed. An MPAN consists of “S” followed by 21 digits in six groups, and you’ll see the full thing on your bills. It looks like this:
 

I’d be very interested to see examples of the new MPANs, so if anyone can be bothered to reply here with theirs, I’d be grateful. An MPAN is considered PII (Personally Identifiable Information), which a criminal could use for nefarious purposes. However, it’s only the MP ID number that is traceable to a particular address, and I’m not interested in that. The first 10 digits (in this example, 00 111 222 13) will be quite enough. I’d also want to know the name of the tariff you’re now on, e.g. Simpler Energy - Economy 7 - 01/10/2024 (most probably Economy 7 or Economy 10, but there will be others). If you’re no longer an OVO customer, the name of your current supplier would be welcome, too.

I’ll happily explain my interest in this if anyone cares! Basically, I’m trying to find out how these new meters are set up to match the tariff. That way, we may have a way of spotting why a particular meter isn’t performing as expected - e.g. switching tariff rates at the wrong times.

Over to you! 

Here you are:-

With OVO - Dundee

simpler energy Economy 10 - 1 Oct 2024

02 888 100 17

Finally working out what is going on with my set up. I have now established that my night storage heaters (old dial type) and hot water are "coming on" at several times of the day.  This would suggest to me that the circuity and RTS is functioning

I am currently on a PAYG meter but do not actually know my tariff. 

My storage heaters do heat up and the room feels particularly warm later in the evening (potentially after a period of charging).

My question is whether the heaters work effectively this way ie receiving several shorter periods of charging during the day ( I assume they are charging up when the circuitry goes live) or whether they require one longer single charging period e.g. 7 hours or more.

Hope that makes sense. 

If you told us where you live, we could probably find out what your tariff is. The first part of your postcode is enough. 

That sounds as if you’ve been put on an Economy 10 tariff. This gives three offpeak periods, one during the night, then one in the afternoon and another in the evening. Again, we’d have to know where you are to be able to tell you when the offpeak periods are.

Because the times vary a lot from place to place, it’s difficult to say how your heaters could be optimized. These older ones don’t retain the heat as well as more modern ones, meaning that they tend to leak heat that you might prefer to save for later.

Another important factor is whether there’s anyone home all day or not; it’s silly to be keeping the temperature up when there’s no-one there, only to find that the heaters have run cold by the time you get home and really need them to warm the place up.   

I live in Perthshire, PH2 9 postcode area, work from home mainly and other half also home during the day.  One other slightly odd thing I've noticed is that the heater is on at the moment (1230pm), or at least the isolation switch light is illuminated but the hot water one isn't which makes me wonder if the water is set up differently somehow. 

Firedog wrote:

An appeal to successful RTS migrants
 

When your shiny new smart meter has settled down completely a few weeks after installation, your supply will probably have been allocated a new MPAN. The ID part of the MPAN should be the same as the one for the old non-RTS meter, but some of the other figures may have changed. An MPAN consists of “S” followed by 21 digits in six groups, and you’ll see the full thing on your bills. It looks like this:
 

 

I’d be very interested to see examples of the new MPANs, so if anyone can be bothered to reply here with theirs, I’d be grateful. An MPAN is considered PII (Personally Identifiable Information), which a criminal could use for nefarious purposes. However, it’s only the MP ID number that is traceable to a particular address, and I’m not interested in that. The first 10 digits (in this example, 00 111 222 13) will be quite enough. I’d also want to know the name of the tariff you’re now on, e.g. Simpler Energy - Economy 7 - 01/10/2024 (most probably Economy 7 or Economy 10, but there will be others). If you’re no longer an OVO customer, the name of your current supplier would be welcome, too.

I’ll happily explain my interest in this if anyone cares! Basically, I’m trying to find out how these new meters are set up to match the tariff. That way, we may have a way of spotting why a particular meter isn’t performing as expected - e.g. switching tariff rates at the wrong times.

Over to you! 

Mine is 02 88 100 17.  I am in Perthshire, Scotland and on Economy 10.  Meter installed 4th November and all worked correctly since installation.