Delay in setting up my Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) account - am I missing out on generation when the sun is out?

The three OVO staff who you see here on the OVO Forum are Forum Moderators whose day job is dedicated to the OVO Forum. That’s what they’re tasked with pretty much exclusively.

They’re not part of the main Support Team or realistically any other team - they act independently of most teams, but the role they play here is more to help keep the show going and keep things clean.

It is the Forum Volunteers like myself and BPLightlog who tend to patrol the forum answering questions. We are just customers like you, albeit customers who choose to use their time to do this for free.

Fair enough, but I have tried everything else, a man gotta do what a man gotta do!

I waited 8 months. Then applied to octopus….they sorted it within a week and are paying me 4 times as much. I really wish I’d done it sooner I would be much better off.

best of luck. It’s a shame they fall down in this.

steve

Any progress @josib 

I had solar panels fitted in July 2022, whilst still an SSE customer (although SSE were part of OVO) I jumped through hoops to try to get my SEG forms sorted out by SSE, but failed! So then OVO took over our gas and electricity supply. 

So I sent off copies of the forms for SEG to OVO, in April 2033, and got an acknowledgement on April 4th. On 27th April I was informed that there was a missing bit of information, which the installers hadn’t given me. I managed to get the information and sent it to OVO’s SEG team.

I have heard nothing since!! Emails sent to the team get an automated reply promising a reply in 4 to 5 working days, but nothing has been sent. The last one was October 19th, still waiting!

Having had two good summers of sunshine and exported several kWh’s of electricity, no money back, no requests for an initial reading, zilch!!

Very disappointed in the OVO SEG Team!

Hey @Gulliver 

Really sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve been having getting the SEG set up.

At the moment there’s a longer time frame than usual for applications and emails to the SEG team. Any customers still waiting to be set up may wish to cancel their SEG application with OVO and re-apply elsewhere as a different supplier may be able to register them quicker. It's not ideal by any means but unfortunately we can't process any quicker than we currently are.

I’ve linked below to a similar topic on this same issue:

• The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) - Getting paid for the energy you export to the grid - FAQs Tutorial

It’s understandable that you’d want the issue resolved without having to take further action, but you may wish to open a complaint for this due to the length of time you’ve been trying to get it sorted. You can do this here: https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback.

Keep us updated with how you get on, it may be helpful to others in similar situations.

Thanks for the update - having applied originally for SEG with SSE in July 2022, before they were taken over by OVO, and having to restart the process in April 2023, I am reluctant to go through the whole process again. I suppose the thing I was complaining about was the lack of information back over the time from April to November. I fully understand that applications would take longer than usual, especially as SSE were obviously not doing anything once they knew they were being taken over.  But a 7 month delay was a bit too long without any further word back.

I eventually took the advice from another user of the forum and contacted the complaints department, and have now been advised by phone (a real person, no less) that I should be receiving my welcome letter in the near future!

The problem with a lack of communication is that you don’t know if the application has been totally lost (SSE took from July to December 2022 to return the paper copies of all my forms to me!) Electronic copies can disappear even more easily!

Hi @Gulliver have you received your welcome letter?

As of ate afternoon of November 14th, no welcome letter yet! I expect the people generating the letters are very busy as well! 🤣

I’ll give it another week!!

Hey @a8pmb1957,

I’m so sorry to hear this, it sounds like a very frustrating situation to be in. 

We’ve recently been advised that a smart export guarantee (SEG) applicant is only eligible for SEG once an export supply number (MPAN) has been created. As soon as that's been done we ask the customer for an opening reading which is the point they will be paid from. Unfortunately we cannot make payment for anything exported before then.

There is also the option to raise complaint if you’re unhappy with the timeframe and customer service you’ve received. 

Thank you for your reply and help 

OVO’s customer service lines are of No use, Y always get cut off after a period of time, No one answers emails apart from the standard Fob  off email, Absolutely pathetic and it will be reported so. You don’t know the half of it.

You do know there’s a faster way… Right…?

Live Chat is almost always faster than calling any company. It’s at https://ovoenergy.com/help .

But I must warn you - today will be madly busy because it’s basically the last day before Christmas.

Unless it’s absolutely urgent, I strongly recommend you hold back until January 2024.

I have tried this method on numerous occasions to no avail, OVO energy is a total waste of space, no one wants to know so now I will report it to the regulating authorities.

In that case, you may want to read all of https://ovoenergy.com/feedback first.

Hi @a8pmb1957,

Really sorry to hear of this delay. 

I will echo what Emmanuelle said by sharing the advice in that other topic she linked to:

I’ve recently been advised that a smart export guarantee (SEG) applicant is only eligible for SEG once an export supply number (MPAN) has been created. As soon as that's been done we ask the customer for an opening reading which is the point they will be paid from. Unfortunately we cannot make payment for anything exported before then.

At the moment there’s a longer time frame than usual for applications and emails to the SEG team. Any customers still waiting to be set up may wish to cancel their SEG application with OVO and re-apply elsewhere as a different supplier may be able to register them quicker. It's not ideal by any means but unfortunately we can't process any quicker than we currently are.

So as long as you’ve heard from us and have been given an export supply number, you will be paid for every penny you’re owed. You have options to escalate this complaint internally or even the Ombudsmen if you feel we can’t offer a resolution that is agreeable. I would recommend exhausting the internal complaints process before doing anything else though...

Since we have moved into our property in October 2021 we have had absolutely no payments for our solar panels. While SSE were still in charge our account was being “transferred” from previous owner to us. 
Despite both owning the house only one name was allowed on the solar panel account meaning for several months no-one would even talk to me, its only recently we were told to write an email giving authorisation for mw to be spoken to, about the solar panels on my own roof! 

Im tired of ringing and CONSTANTLY being fobbed off with nothing but crap! Yet if I decided to pay my bill late I receive emails, texts and letters with threats of late payment charges. 
Realistically I'm sure were owed enough money to pay the bill for a year, its a joke and appalling service.

A similar situation to those still waiting for their SEG tariff to be set up...

It is important to raise complaints with the Ombudsman after the internal procedure has been exhausted or become vexatious. The Ombudsman's decision is binding but the they are unable to legally enforce compliance. This can be frustrating because even an Ombudsman’s decision does not necessary resolve issues.

It is the job of the regulator Ofgem to enforce overall compliance, but they won’t get involved in individual cases. I’ve recently had a conversation with a representative at Ofgem. The summary, as far as I understand what was said, is as follows:

• OVO are required to perform their statutory duties with respect to SEG account setup within a reasonable time frame and with due care. It is completely unacceptable for OVO to recommend that customers who are encountering problems with account set up to move their SEG application to another suppliers, since that is a breach of statutory duty.
• Ofgem currently have an investigation open against OVO for (1) unacceptable levels of customer service (which includes SEG applications) and (2) failing to implement decisions of the Ombudsman, including wrongfully marking cases as “resolved” when they are in fact not.
• There have historically been similar investigations concerning OVO, including failure to prioritise vulnerable service users. OVO have failed to sustain improvements and implement agreed measures to improve service, so a major component of the current investigation is in reference to failure of duty and failure to act.

The Ofgem investigation is moving to the next stage, but at this time cannot disclose what this involves. However, they did strongly impress that complaints should absolutely be raised with the Ombudsman. The reason is that Ofgem use complaint information held by the Ombudsman as evidence for their investigation and that this evidence is critical in deciding what compliance action / fines, etc. will be enforced.

Hey @emmazam,

I’m really sorry to hear this, and for the delayed response. Your question was posted under the ‘ideas’ category, so I’ve moved it to another SEG topic. 

Have you had any success or are you still having issues with this? 

Still having issues @Emmanuelle_OVO 

Applied for SEG and had provided all required documentation by 2nd November 2022.

We sent 3 reminders by email (last reminder sent in July 2023), and got an automated email back from OVO requesting the documentation already provided. To this day---two and a half years later---, our application has never followed up by OVO.  Has anyone had similar issues and how did they resolve them? 

Hey ​@AliceB 

Sorry to hear about the delay you’re having.

It’s sadly not too uncommon due to the process taken by the team, we’ve got a couple of similar topics on the Forum:

I took this from another similar topics;

‘A smart export guarantee (SEG) applicant is only eligible for SEG once an export supply number (MPAN) has been created. As soon as that's been done we ask the customer for an opening reading which is the point they will be paid from. Unfortunately we cannot make payment for anything exported before then.

At the moment there’s a longer time frame than usual for applications and emails to the SEG team. Any customers still waiting to be set up may wish to cancel their SEG application with OVO and re-apply elsewhere as a different supplier may be able to register them quicker. It's not ideal by any means but unfortunately we can't process any quicker than we currently are.’

We don’t have access to the accounts platform here at the Forum, so we wouldn’t be able to check on the progress of this. We’d recommend getting in touch with the team again about this to ensure things are still there to be processed. To speak to our team you can call 0330 303 5063 and select ‘4’ when the IVR instructs you to do so. You can also email the team via  seg@ovoenergy.com.

Let us know how you get on.

while I understand that Ovo can be experiencing some delays, I feel that over 2 years’ delay is excessive. 

I do understand your frustration ​@AliceB. Are you with another supplier for SEG at the moment?

I wonder if it’s worth going through the complaints process to see if that can speed it up. Have you spoken to the SEG team directly?
 

If you need to speak to our Team you can call 0330 303 5063 and selecting ‘4’ when the IVR instructs you to do so. You can also email the team via fits@ovoenergy.com for the FIT team or  seg@ovoenergy.com if you’ve got SEG with us.

thank you for your support and advice Emmanuelle, I will proceed as you suggest, via the different emails, the telephone number and I am writing up a complaint, also to be sent to the ombudsman. Hopefully things will get moving.