Hoping someone here can help because this has been an on-going battle since before OVO took over SSE and it’s gotten progressively worse recently.
I live in a house that’s meters haven’t been checked, inspected, whatever since at least 1993. I have two meters - one for my storage heaters and water tank, and one for standard electricity. I’ve been trying to get this changed to either a smart meter if available OR just a standard single meter with a day or night rate.
I have email chain(s) going on with SSE/OVO (One email chain is using @sseenergyservices.com and the other is @ovo.com hence posting here) that I seem to just be going around in circles. I finally got through to the Electric Heating Team (EHT) about two weeks ago who changed me onto a single rate THTC tarrif, so both my standard and heating meters are at the same rate - but based on the readings that I’ve been providing, it’s still nearly 500 a month just for two storage heaters and a water tank.
Has anyone else had problems being switched to a single meter? It’s driving me insane and I can’t change providers even if I wanted to because I’m currently bent over a barrel with an old meter system that they won’t change that no one else supports.
Edit: Just to add, it’s Radio Teleswitch Total Heat Total Control (THTC) to be specific.
Best answer by Emmanuelle_OVO
Updated on 14/06/24 by Shads_OVO
Update on RTS shutdown:
As part of the RTS Project development, we are really happy to share with you our progress:
As you may be aware, the RTS signal that instructs some of our meters when to move to the “Off Peak Period” will be closing down soon and we need to arrange for all of our RTS customers to have a meter exchange so they don’t lose any of their meter functionality.
The RTS signal will end for our customers on 30 June 2025. The period between 1 July - 30 September 2025 will then be used to close-down the RTS signal and allow us to manage any unexpected customers impacted.
After a very successful pilot, from the 17th June 2024 we will begin writing to our Economy 10 RTS customers to invite them to call us to arrange for their meter exchange.
We are continuing to work at pace to enable the same solution for the majority of our other RTS customers and our aim is to begin writing to these customers in Aug 2024.
Amazing to hear that you managed to get booked in so quickly for your meter exchange! @Blastoise186 is correct that your new smart meter will be able to do the task of 2 meters and you can ask the engineer whether they’ll configure the meter or if you need to call and have it done remotely. This is called an ECAUL configuration and it basically means that an extra port on the meter is opened to control any time based heating or tariffs such as economy 7.
If you have any specific questions about the install and what needs done you can reach out to our Support Team.
Keep us updated on your progress and if you have any follow up questions!
My elderly mother live in an old bungalow in the North East of Scotland.
Prior to having her smart meter installed a few months ago she had two electricity meters.
One was for the electric panel heaters she uses with which she had total heating total control, the other was for all her other electrical requirements.
Way back when she got her electric heaters a new electrical socket was put in every room into which she was only allowed to plug in the electric panel heaters for the THTC.
About 4 months ago she was told by OVO that she had to change to a smart meter. Both her old meters were removed and replaced with a single smart meter.
At the time we were told that Economy 10 was the best option and that she would still keep her THTC.
Recently a relative informed us that THTC (24 hour reduced) was not available with a smart meter set up.
I phoned up OVO today to get some clarity and the first guy I spoke to said we would still have the THTC but he would need to put me through to another department. The second guy I spoke said that we did not have THTC any more and that we would only get the economy rate for the heating during the reduced price hours that come with economy 10.
Can anyone shed any light on the true situation.
I have also read that THTC might be coming to smart meters in the future once OVO get the technical aspects sorted out.
If THTC isn’t offered to you as part of the migration, chances are it’ll never be available for you - it’s only available to those in Load Managed Areas where it’ll be the ONLY option. That only applies to certain bits of Northern Scotland. Everyone else will be taken off of THTC and migrated to another tariff.
Long story short, THTC will work on Smart Meters - but only if you’re explicitly offered it. If you get migrated to (or offered) any other tariff, then you’re probably not eligible to keep THTC and there’s no going back to it.
Worth noting that if you don’t have Storage Heaters and/or Immersion Heaters, THTC is totally not the right tariff for you anyway!
Gotcha, then THTC probably wouldn’t be suitable anyway. It doesn’t play well with any other heating type outside of Storage/Immersion Heaters. Remember that ALL usage on THTC other than Heating is Mega Expensive, whereas E7/9/10 makes it so ALL usage during Off-Peak hours is charged at the cheaper rate so it balances out much more easily.
Migrating to modern tariffs also allows more flexibility and choice in what tariff you pick, so that’s another thing to consider - you can’t really do that with THTC!
There have been updates for everyone who have been affected by the RTS/THTC shut down. We worked with @Blastoise186 to create a guide to all the changes happening which you can read below
When customers are changed onto new smart meters when available they’re giving options on what tariff would suit them best. This is normally decided based on individual circumstances like having an immersion heater or storage heaters. Hopefully this helps and if you have any more questions let us know and we’ll find answers for you.
Just had an update from the team behind the scenes. It sounds like THTC is now totally deprecated and pending full withdrawal. I’ve updated the main thread accordingly, but it may take some time to decide whether to fix all other threads.
There are several versions of THTC, but the one currently available to OVO customers in Northern Scotland appears to be a two-meter arrangement: one for heating/hot water and the other for everything else. Heating is thus available all the time, charged at 21.51 p/kWh while other usage is at 26.56 p/kWh. This isn’t be possible with a smart meter.
The alternatives are:
the Standard Variable Tariff (SVT), where all usage is charged at the same rate of 24.07 p/kWh
Economy 7, which gives 7 hours of cheaper electricity overnight at 17.44 p/kWh while the other 17 hours are charged at 27.07 p/kWh
Economy 9, which gives a total of nine hours of cheaper electricity at 20.32 p/kWh in three slots: 3am - 6am, 12pm - 3pm and 7:30pm - 10:30pm. The other 15 hours are charged at 26.91 p/kWh.
Economy 10, which gives a total of ten hours of cheaper electricity at 20.14 p/kWh in three slots: 4:30am - 7:30am, 1:30pm - 4:30pm and 8:30pm - 12:30am. The other 14 hours are charged at 25.91 p/kWh.
If the only form of heating is electric radiators, it’s likely that these take the lion’s share of all electricity. It should be possible to see whether this was the case by comparing the usage recorded by the two old meters, if the old lady still has her old bills. I’ve seen examples where 80% of a customer’s consumption was for heating. In cases like this, an acceptable balance has to be found between comfort and cost. Economy 7 can be ruled out, unless your mother could consider buying and installing a storage heater or two. Otherwise, you’d have to find out how she’s been heating the house. A frugal customer might only have the heaters on when the room temperature falls below the comfort level; another might just leave them on all the time and trust to their thermostats to turn them off when it’s warm enough.
The smart meter can see to making the heaters (and water heater perhaps) run only during the offpeak hours on an Economy tariff. It would be possible (but probably not straightforward) to turn them on at other times by means of the meter’s boost function. If the existing radiators have any sort of timing controls, it might be possible to use those instead of having the meter do it.
It’s really not easy to make suggestions without knowing the situation in detail, so you may have to step in to make some observations and calculations.
I have a smart meter installed at home, but I’m using it alongside a THTC (Total Heat Total Control) system for my heating. It seems like there’s some sort of compatibility issue between the two. The smart meter is not tracking my energy usage correctly when it comes to the heating portion of my bills. Is there a way to resolve it? I’m not sure if it’s a technical issue or something with the way the systems are set up.
We use 3 different kinds of cookies. You can choose which cookies you want to accept. We need basic cookies to make this site work, therefore these are the minimum you can select. Learn more about our cookies.
