Storage heaters and 5 port smart meters- Can I have economy 7?

Hi both. Thanks for your responses. 

Emmanuelle - I’d rather focus my time and effort on finding a correct answer (and hopefully a solution) than complaining. If the answer is - we can’t do this right now but will be able to in the future, then I’ll have to wait. If the answer is “we’re not ever going to do this” then I’ll cancel the installation of my storage heaters (scheduled in 2 weeks) and buy something else. 

Firedog - I had no idea there was so much info on my bill! The DNO is 17, which will tell you I’m in a PA postcode. Not sure how to do a screenshot (never been on a forum before either), but it looks like this:

   01 - 500 - 100

S  17 - xxx - 000

Does that help? Thanks

You’d be surprised! DNO 17 is the old Scottish Hydro region, which you may see called _P, a designator for the Grid Supply Point group which is almost always the same as the DNO area. It doesn’t locate you any more precisely than that.

That’s fine, thanks. For a start, the first number - 01 - shows that this is a single-rate metering point. Anyone seeing that might assume straight away that multi-rate (peak and offpeak) tariffs just aren’t possible. That could explain some of the odd responses you’ve had from support staff.

The middle number - 500 - means just what you’d expect - no time restrictions. For a multi-rate meter point, the number would be different and indicate at what times offpeak changes to peak and vice versa.

Since you had storage heaters before the meter exchange, I’d be surprised if you weren’t then on some sort of economy plan with cheaper overnight electricity to charge up the heaters - and possibly a hot water tank, too. Were you? If so, someone has gone to the trouble of changing your meter registration from multi-rate to single-rate. I can’t imagine why, but that’s probably the reason why Computer says no. 

As ​@Emmanuelle_OVO said, it may be best to enter a formal complaint about this. This would eventually give you a dedicated complaints handler who can delve into the history of your account, find out who did what when and why, and with any luck get you back on track towards getting a less expensive tariff. I don’t think you’ll get anywhere fast otherwise.

I don’t think there’s much doubt that modern storage heaters would work much better than the old ones, but only if you’re not paying over the odds for the electricity you use. Any other solution (“I’ll cancel the installation of my storage heaters ... and buy something else”) will certainly be ruinously expensive, if you’re misled by advertisements for ‘more efficient heaters’. 

Thank you Firedog. Armed with a lot more knowledge I am now going to ring OVO again and see what Agent 3 tells me. Will update! Thanks

Keep us posted ​@Carry!