Hi @steve167 

If you’re only with OVO with your feed in tariff (FiT) arrangement, you won’t have access to the OVO online account portal. 

Please be aware that you should be able to do this via the automated email you receive quarterly. If a link isn’t showing on the email we sent, or if you never got the email, our main Support team are able to add this to an internal form on your behalf, which will get sent to OVO’s FIT team. You can send over the reading (and a link to this topic if need be) via online chat. 

If you need to contact our FiT Team on the phone you can by calling 0330 303 5063 and selecting ‘4’ when the IVR instructs you to do so.

If you’re FIT has moved over but don’t have your energy account with OVO, your call will be automatically routed to the FiT Team.

You’ll always receive a confirmation email once the reading has been successfully submitted.

Hope this helps! 

I was transferred from SSE to OVO for my gas, electric and Solar Energy. Unfortunately GMail decided OVO was a ‘suspect’ company and sent all of their emails to my ‘Spam’ box.  By the time I realised this I had missed my September and December FIT submission dates. As soon as I realised this I tried to submit a reading but was told that I could not do this until the next ‘period’ which was 1 March. (For info, SSE allowed you to submit a reading at any time).

1 March has now arrived and I received an email from OVO asking me to submit a FIT reading. I did this, using today’s date of 1 March, but got a message back immediately to say that I could not submit a reading until the current period of 1 June!!

Searching on this forum, I found advice to use the online chat to get any queries on FIT readings addressed.  I did this and was told that the online chat team do not deal with FIT readings and gave me an email for the OVO FIT team.

I decided to call OVO directly and got through to their call center (in India?) where they had difficulty understanding what at FIT reading was, but finally they transferred me to a telephone number for the FIT team (which I could not find on the OVO website). 

The FIT team (UK based) were helpful insofar as they explained that there were “computer issues” preventing the input of FIT readings.  They agreed to call me back when this had been fixed and they registered my fit reading for me over the phone and followed this up with an email confirmation.

A successful outcome, but the end result is that I will be getting my FIT payment in June, almost 1 year after my last one from SSE.

Reading the comments in this forum, it appears that OVO do not go out of their way to help customers who qualified for the FITS scheme. Surely, at the minimum, they should have a dedicated link (tab) on their home page for FITS customers taking them to FAQ, an online chat service, and contact details (including a phone number) for those customers who need it.

It has become much easier in recent months. You can now call 0330 303 5063 from the phone number linked to your FiT Account and the system will route you to that team automatically if you’re FiT-Only, or offer FiT Support if you also have an energy supply with OVO.

Persevere….. finally my issue, after being transferred like you from SSE to OVO for FIT payments, has been SOLVED!!!! No payment or readings accepted from June 2022 till December 2022. Not feeling optimistic at that point after so much difficulty but I GOT MY PAYMENT finally this week and received a reading request this morning and sent the reading straight away which was accepted!!!! So for the future. Once you get on to their system properly, which took me repeated phone calls, messages and complaints and escalated complaints, it appears to click into an efficient system. If only it didn’t take SO MUCH EFFORT on my part. 
Good luck!!

Ovo is the company we now send our FIT results to.  We are currently in the period January-March and anticipate sending in the FIT reading on 31st March for this period.  However, we have now had an email stating FIT readings should be sent in in June.  What is going on?  Since 2011 we have submitted readings to SSE every 3 months.

Looks like the email was sent in error, others have reported it and the FIT team told

I have seen this posted by OVO a couple of days ago in reply to a FIT question in case it helps.

I'm sorry you've not received your FIT payment.

Please reach out to the team here who will get this resolved for you: fits@ovoenergy.com.

Just so you know, the FIT team processes readings, statements, and payments at different times of the year, I’ve included their processing times for you below:

Spring
Take/Process readings: March
Statements sent: End of April
Payments sent: End of May

Summer
Take/Process readings: June
Statements sent: End of July
Payments sent: End of August

Autumn
Take/Process readings: September
Statements sent: End of October
Payments sent: End of November

Winter
Take/Process readings: December
Statements sent: End of January
Payments sent: End of February

I am just wondering WHY the FIT team has requested us to send in FIT readings in JUNE and not March as we had anticipated.  Was their email for June a mistake.  It would appear from the information provided by Jeffus that it is indeed a mistake.  I have copied the above info.

Yes mistake I think. Was the year 2022?

No dated 1st March 2023

No reminder for end of March

This is the email I received on 1st March, hence Jeffus asking about the date. No correction/apology received as of 13:00 2nd March. Clearly the FIT Team Process is working overtime !

Hi @P50WKB @MAG1036 yes as Jeffus has pointed out, the dates in that email are wrong. 

The feed in tariff team will be sending another email to those who received this error in the coming days. 

I’m sorry for any confusion caused. 

Thanks everyone - we have now had a revised email from OVO with the correct date.  It has come as a surprise that OVO has changed how long it keeps on our FIT money.  With SSE we had the money within 3 weeks of sending in the readings.  I suppose we will adjust to having to wait 8 weeks.  When we received the June email we thought there was another change in OVO’s favour.

The way OVO pays out is actually safer than the way SSE used to pay out. SSE used to pay without waiting for Ofgem to cough up first. If Ofgem didn’t reimburse SSE, they’d be out-of-pocket and getting their money back wasn’t always easy.

By waiting for Ofgem to hand over the cash first, OVO doesn’t have to risk taking a hit to its bank balance.

That’s a big hole you are digging Blastoise - what about the hit to our bank balance ? As a percentage of my cash flow, OVO’s delayed / late / non payment of my FIT is enormous compared to OVO’s cash flow. I don’t recall SSE ever not getting reimbursed by Ofgem - certainly not since 2012 when I started claiming FIT payments (and getting paid within 3 weeks of submitting the reading !)

I’ve always advised against relying on FiT/SEG Payouts to pay other bills or maintain your bank balance with. If you do rely on them, it’s probably a good idea to think through your strategy again.

It’s worth remembering that FiT/SEG don’t necessarily last forever and they could get terminated at anytime. Unlikely to happen, but definitely not impossible. It’s much safer to consider them a bonus thing rather than part of critical cashflow.

My understanding is that I have a watertight un-cancellable contract for my FIT payments (SEG may be different - it’s so low priced I don’t know why anyone bothers) until the end of the period. Do you know otherwise?

The most likely reason would be if the government pulls FiT completely. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon

Delayed/Withheld Feed-in-Tariff payments

Those of us with delayed FIT payments have been reminded on several occasions that the FIT Team processes readings, statements and payments at different times of the year.  
In accordance with OVO’s published terms the Spring Quarter timing is thus:
Take/Process readings: March
Statements sent: End of April
Payments sent: End of May

As we are coming rapidly towards the end of April, will the FIT Team or an authorised representative acknowledge here (not on social media) that they are indeed sending out Statements for the Spring Quarter in the next several days with the view to making timely payments in May. From what I gather from other contributors on this Forum I will not be alone in expecting to also receive aggregated missing Statements and outstanding payments for Quarterly FIT readings submitted previously.

Hey @P50WKB,

Thank you for your question,

As pointed out in your post the schedule for statements is April and payments is the end of May. There may be circumstances which mean a delay is caused such as a missing verification photo. If you don't get the expected payment, reach out to the team on 0330 303 5063 and selecting ‘4’ when the IVR instructs you to do so.

Delayed/Withheld Feed-in-Tariff payments

I don't work for OVO and am just a simple OVO customer who is keen to know where his missing FIT payments are………noting that the end of April has come and gone without a Statement appearing, I took it upon myself to phone the FIT team and ask what was happening. Amazingly I managed to get through to an actual FIT person with only a 10 minute delay to learn that the Spring Quarter Statements will be in the post by Friday of this week – 5th May – and that, in my case, the two outstanding Quarters will be paid at the end of May as per the process. A result in the offing ?……..maybe; watch this space…………………..

By the way,  0330 303 5063 works but there is still no “select 4 ” option available, nor a FIT Team option – you need to speak to a person and ask to be put through to the Team.
 

Hey @P50WKB, 

Thanks for letting us know about the problem on the 0330 303 5063 phone that there’s no option 4, we’ve fed this back so that it can be looked into. We appreciate you giving us that update, we hope that everything is fixed for you soon!

Well, a result of sorts : the OVO process advises that the Spring Quarter Statements will be “posted on (+3 working days for post): By the end of April”. With the 30th April being a Sunday combined with the surfeit of Bank Holidays around that time I was prepared for a short delay but as nothing had arrived by the 8th May I was beginning to sharpen my pencil.

Out of the blue, on Thursday 11th May an E-mail arrived from The FiT Team announcing “Here are your payments for 13th September 2022 to 4th March 2023” correctly showing my withheld generation readings from 13th September 2022 and correctly showing the Total Payment that I should expect to receive by the end of May “(+3 working days for bank processing)”…………...Just one final hurdle to overcome to achieve full reimbursement for 19,037 kWh x £0.3515/kWh plus deemed export!

For those wondering why I bother: I have a wind turbine on the North East Coast of Scotland where it tends to be a bit windy; I was compulsorily switched from SSE to OVO and when I submitted my first set of generation readings to OVO in September last, I was told that "The reading you're trying to submit is higher than we would expect". Quite how that expectation was derived from a first reading is a mystery but it all went downhill from there. No statement or payment forthcoming of course. For my second generation reading in March I was told “As our system has flagged this as being outside the expected range, we will review it before it is submitted for payment. We will get back in touch once this has been reviewed". Again, no contact, statement or payment forthcoming of course.

One last point to make as it’s interesting to read over the minutiae of OFGEM "In a process called ‘periodic levelisation’, scheme costs are met every quarter by all licensed electricity suppliers based on their share of the electricity supply market of Great Britain (GB). Depending on how much a licensee has paid FIT generators for generation and export, (Note the tense) they either pay money into or receive money from the levelisation fund. After the end of each FIT year, the ‘annual levelisation’ process reconciles the year’s periodic levelisations and ensures each FIT licensee has paid or received the right amount of money." 

Absolutely nothing there to suggest that OVO is obliged to get reimbursed by OFGEM first despite the obtuse view expressed in a post above that “The way OVO pays out is actually safer than the way SSE used to pay out. By waiting for Ofgem to hand over the cash first, OVO doesn’t have to risk taking a hit to its bank balance.” ……………enough said!

Having not received the usual email with link, I rang 0330 303 5063 yesterday, 1 June, and got through to Option 4.  Variable volume and clarity of sound as you went through the various stages.  However, I was able to leave my reading and finish the call in less than 8 minutes.  And I have now received the explicitly promised email confirming receipt of the reading and undertaking to pay ‘no later than the first week of September’.  

Maybe things are slowly improving, albeit from a very low threshold ! Has it got anything to do with Ofgem taking a more serious interest in OVO’s overall performance I wonder ? 

Anyway, I am pleased to report that I received two outstanding FIT payments for the correct amount, into my bank account yesterday ( 13th September 2022 to 4th March 2023), together with an email showing the correct FIT ID account number, announcing “It’s time to give us your quarterly reading from your generation meter (and export meter, if you have one). Please send your reading before 30th June 2023”.

Given my comment on my previous post I did have a chuckle at the throwaway remark on the email that says “The Ofgem process can take a little while” - bit of a misunderstanding about whose process is the problem I think !!

If anyone needs a good public domain read about OVO covering the period November 2013 to January 2020, I can recommend the following 46 pages: para 2.71 “Ovo’s actions and omissions significantly favoured its interests” is particularly interesting.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2020/04/notice_of_decision_to_impose_a_financial_penalty_on_ovo_dated_9_april_2020_0.pdf
 

Will there be a follow up I wonder - lessons learnt springs to mind !