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Are my peak/off peak registers the wrong way round?

  • 21 January 2024
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We have an Economy 10 tariff with storage heaters. Having been told that I owe Ovo a lot of money due to underpayment for my electricity consumption, I went back over my past 2 years of bills (since we moved in). I was amazed to see that I seem to using far more peak time power than off peak and that in the winter months the peak time consumption shoots up. This should not be the case - the storage heaters are only active off peak, and all washing and tumble-drying also being done off peak, it really looks as if we are being charged peak rates during off peak hours and vice versa. Is this possible? How can we check? i have raised this with Ovo and am waiting for their response, but I wonder if anyone else has ever experienced this?

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Best answer by Oceantrader 23 January 2024, 15:01

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Blastoise186
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Try https://ovoenergy.com/help for this one. :)

Just so you know, fixing this may take some time. Failing that, https://ovoenergy.com/feedback has your back.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Firedog
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it really looks as if we are being charged peak rates during off peak hours and vice versa. Is this possible? How can we check? … I wonder if anyone else has ever experienced this?

 

Sadly, yes. We have been looking at at least four cases where this seems to be happening. Since Economy 10 tariffs are not readily available, could it be that you inherited your supply from SSE, which was eventually absorbed by OVO?

The cases I mentioned all involve SSE migrants with apparently identical smart meters and similar heating arrangements. There’s been no resolution so far, and no explanation of why one customer’s E10 set-up is working properly while several others aren’t. I’d refer you to this post in a long thread in case you’re interested in adding another data point to the evidence we’ve managed to assemble so far, assuming your arrangement is comparable.
  

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
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Wow, thanks for your reply. It does give us some small measure of comfort that we are not alone. We were indeed SSE customers that were then taken over by Ovo and our meter looks the same as the one shown in the thread you directed me too. I await with interest the response from Ovo.

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Oceantrader,

 

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

 

I can see you have already been given some helpful suggestions from our Community Members,

 

Could it be that as it’s darker in winter you’re using more lighting during peak times I wonder? 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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That is certainly true but it would not account for the massive increase - nor the relative stability of the recorded off peak.   

Firedog
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I await with interest the response from Ovo.

 

That looks to be a long time coming. It might help speed things up a bit if you managed to post the details I asked the other victims to produce:
  

 

If you’re concerned about sharing this sort of stuff publicly, there’s no need to be - there’s no personally-identifiable information involved (addresses etc.) that you can’t easily remove before posting. 

I do hope you’ll help us out 🙂

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
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[{"mpxn":"*edited by moderator*","msn":"21M0375587","address":[","region":"_H","profileClass":"02","meterType":"S2ADE","mapId":"SGNS","lineLossFactorClassId":"104","registers":[{"tier":1,"clockingTimeId":40,"timeOfUseLabel":"peak","meterRegisterId":"1","timePatternRegime":40,"measurementQuantityId":"AI","switchedLoadIndicator":false,"meterRegisterMultiplier":1,"registerMappingCoefficient":"1"},{"tier":2,"clockingTimeId":206,"timeOfUseLabel":"offpeak","meterRegisterId":"2","timePatternRegime":206,"measurementQuantityId":"AI","switchedLoadIndicator":true,"meterRegisterMultiplier":1,"registerMappingCoefficient":"1"}],"start":"2022-07-28T23:00:00.000Z","end":null,"fuel":"Electricity","meterNoOfDigitsOrDials":5}]

 

I think this is the best that I can do, Any good?

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This is the reply I have had from Ovo

 

Thanks for getting in touch with us, I'm here to help you with this today. 

I've sent a message asking them to get in touch with you and arrange a more appropriate time to discuss matters, however I have noticed a problem with the meter reads that were submitted prior to your supply being migrated to ourselves, and as you say, the reads appear to be out of line, and possibly transposed for which I can only offer my sincere apologies. In order to resolve this matter I have raised a case to our Billing Operations team 

I have requested that they investigate a write-off due to the inaccurate nature of the reads that SSE provided us as you appear to have been charged incorrectly prior to your migration, and this will take up to a maximum of 45 working days before being resolved fully. This should include our Billing Operations team reaching out to discuss the matter with you before coming to a resolution. As part of the resolution I have been asked to obtain a picture of your meter in order for us to begin our investigations. If you could please take a picture of your meter including the meter serial number that will allow us to begin our investigations.

Once again I can only offer my sincere apologies that this issue has not been picked up prior to this point however I am hopeful that this matter will be resolved soon and a new bill issued for you based on the correct details.

I have sent them the photo of the meter with this reply

Unless I misunderstood what you are saying, you appear to be blaming the problem on inaccurate readings from SSE prior to the migration to OVO. However, as you can see from my summary of peak and off peak charges up to December last year, this issue is an on going one. It is inconceivable that we only used 187 off peak units from 22nd November to 21st December, but used 1258 peak units, when all our heating should be running off peak.

Firedog
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I think this is the best that I can do, Any good?

 

That’s perfect! 

Your setup looks like a real *Edited by Mod*. The plan is called Economy 10, but the rates and timings shown are for Economy 7 in your region (Southern, shown as region _H in the JSON file). I can’t say how this is possible.

The JSON file also shows that the meter is apparently set up for Economy 7*.  If your heaters are operating on an Economy 10 schedule, then a lot of the electricity they’re using will be being charged at peak rates.

This meter is capable of controlling when the heaters switch on and off. Is there another timeswitch somewhere in the house that governs this? Can you say what time they switch on and off? E.g do they come on at 13:00 and again at 20:00? If you have a working IHD, it should be pretty obvious when the current power draw shoots up to several kW.

On E10 in your region, the offpeak hours are 00:00 - 05:00, 13:00 - 16:00 and 20:00 - 22:00. If your heaters are following this schedule, it’s only the units consumed between midnight and 5AM that are charged at the low rate. Afternoon and evening consumption would be at peak rate. Is this what is happening, do you think?

I didn’t think it was possible, but if this is what you’re seeing, and there’s no other time control for the heating circuits, it looks as if the meter may be recording peak/offpeak usage according to the E7 timings, but the switch in the meter (the ALCS) is turning the heaters on and off according to the E10 timings. Please prove me wrong!

 

*   Time Pattern Regime (TPR) 40 for peak hours is ‘Weekdays & Weekends 0700-2400’, while TPR  206 for offpeak is ‘All days 0000-0700’. This governs when the meter records usage on the two registers, peak and offpeak. My own identical meter has exactly the same setup, but then I’m supposed to be on Economy 7.

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
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Well that sounds like an interesting conversation to be had with OVO! I think this could well explain what is happening. The heaters can be turned on between 12 midnight and 5am; from 13.00 to 16.00 and from 20.00 to 22.00. Each one has its own on/off switch so they do not automatically come on during these times, but during the recent cold weather they wee turned on rather a lot during the day. Our Smart meter does shoot up when the heaters are on during the day but I foolishly assumed that this was normal for this type of heater - I don’t think I have seen what it does overnight to compare. As far as I am aware there is no other time switch in the house. This has been really helpful, thank you.  I now have the small matter of getting OVO to agree that this is what has been happening. I’m guessing their response will be “That’s impossible!” I’ll keep you posted.

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Oceantrader,

 

Really helpful info there from Firedog! 

 

If you speak to the social team or support team via webchat you can send them a link to this Forum topic so that you don’t have to repeat the information. 

 

Our Support team’s web messaging and WhatsApp opening hours are:

  • 8am - 6pm Monday to Friday 

  • 9am - 2pm on Saturdays

 

Or contact the team via Facebook or Twitter from 9am - 5pm. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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Thank you.  

 

OVO had no replied and accepted their error - 

Thanks for getting in touch with us. My name is Adefemi. I'm a Customer Care Agent here at OVO, and I'm happy to help you with this.

I called you this morning to speak on this, but you were not available at that moment. However, this is first to apologize for the misinterpretation of the contract plan details of the subject indicated as Economy 10 as it was confirmed the meter is set for Economy 7 hours. Hence, reason for the peak charge period of 0700-2400 and off-peak charge period of 0000-0700

More importantly, I want to use this medium to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Hopeful this will help resolve your concerns.

If you have any queries regarding this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Adefemi (the 4th different person I have dealt with so far) then went on to give all sorts of useful tips on how to manage and monitor my energy consumption !!! This my reply

Thank you for your reply.

I have had no missed call this morning.

I appreciate your apology, but I wonder what you are actually going to do about it? I have been planning my energy use around the assumption that I was on an E10 schedule when in fact I wasn't. In fact I wasn't even getting 7 hours off peak rate, I was only getting 5. My energy bill is therefore far higher than it should be.

I repeat - what are you going to do about it? And what are you going to do to rectify this going forward?

If you want to discuss this over the phone please e mail some proposed times for the call so that I can be sure to make myself available.

 

Tim_OVO
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Hi @Oceantrader - what’s the latest on this? I’m keen to make sure this gets resolved. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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I have had no response from OVO

P
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Like you we were migrated from SSE to OVO, We have now been told that OVO don't offer E10 on a Smart Meter & we should never have been offered it by SSE! It appears that we had a Smart Meter fitted on Economy 10 with SSE in March. When we migrated to OVO in August Economy 10 wasn't a tariff OVO offered But NOBODY TOLD US!! I think so we have been on E7 since.  The local setup still thinks we are on E10 and the heating etc. still boosts for 10 hours per day, but that means 5 hours at expensive heating! The charging pattern on Storage Radiators is still E10 but we have been losing 5 hours of cheap electricity a day!.

There's talk of compensation, well see! Disgraceful! We can't be the only customers affect by this

O
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This is exactly the situation that we are in We re still waiting to hear what OVO are going to do about it - I an refusing to pay the massive bill they say we owe them! 

P
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Ovo force migrated us from SSE in order to complete the acquisition by a set date (told this by ovo) and did so knowing that they could not support the E10 tariff as they did not (and still don’t) offer one themselves.  Technically they are right, they *dont* offer E10 but have inherited a load of us that they don’t know quite what to do with.  The issue started because SSE use the TPR settings the other way round to OVO and, because OVO don’t offer E10 as a new tariff they cannot configure the meter correctly, when they are trying to ‘fix’ the issue, they are using a JSON file which is set up for E7 and causing the issue that we all have .

The peak / off peak timings for the meter are set independently so do not respond to the configuration file.  I did ask OVO if I wanted to just move to E7, could they fix the meter and they said it would need a replacement meter, set up for E7 rather than E10 and they weren’t able to do that at present (surprise!)

The supposed simple fix of correctly editing an E10 JSON file and pushing it out to the affected meters seems to be the required solution but somehow OVO choose not to do this.

We are basically getting gaslighted,  we migrated from SSE on the understanding that there would be no changes to charging or tariffs.

Abby_OVO
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Hey @Oceantrader 

 

I’m really sorry to hear you’ve had no response yet. 

 

I’m going to have the Forum_Support reach out to you about this so they can take a look into this for you. Keep a look out here for a private message: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview.

Location: Electric Avenue
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@Oceantrader @Blastoise186 . Good afternoon, just joining the thread to let you know that we have exactly the same problem I.e off peak usage being billed as peak. The meter is also an Aclara and we are a customer that was migrated with our Economy 10 tariff to OVO com SSE, now Simpler Energy Economy 10. 
Problem was first reported on 3rd January this year, meter engineer visited last week and confirmed meter configured and working correctly and that the problem lies with the software used to interpret the readings and create the correct billing. 
We are now into the “fix the problem” phase which I’m told could take up to 4 weeks (oh and by the way I’m also told that there is no automatic procedure for letting us know when they complete the work) and then, assuming no more delays it’ll be handed over to the Billing team who currently have a very very very very long backlog and that could take another 12 weeks.

The one saving grace has been the ability to communicate in the last couple of months with one particular person in the customer service team who has been doing his absolute best in the face of what I interpret to be a broken and overwhelmed system for dealing with these kinds of true (not customer finger troubles) technical problems.

We wait to see the outcome and then……finally, hopefully get all of the money returned as a result of the inaccurate billing.

In the meantime, worbetide anyone from OVO who rings up again saying the account is slightly in arrears 🙄

 

Firedog
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… we have exactly the same problem I.e off peak usage being billed as peak. The meter is also an Aclara and we are a customer that was migrated with our Economy 10 tariff to OVO com SSE ...

 

Excuse me for barging in, but I’ve been trying to compile a catalogue of this type of problem. It seems that most of the SSE migrants in the same situation have had similar troubles, but few have been identical according to what we’ve seen in these forums. It seems that of the myriad account and device settings that have to be made, each one has had a random selection applied, with mostly unsatisfying results. Your situation is unique in this respect (at least as far as I can remember), if the only problem is that offpeak usage is being billed at peak rates and vice versa.

The common points are:

  • Aclara SGM 1416-B meter installed by SSE;
  • Economy 10 tariff applied;
  • Region _H, 20 (Southern Electricity Board). (This may be coincidental, but I think most SSE migrants in Scotland have different equipment.) 

I’m going to ask for a dossier of information, but of course you choose whether or not to comply 🙂 This would enable me to compare your set-up with some of the others with a view to spotting what’s going wrong with the migration. This is what would help most:

  1. Clear photos of the meter showing three of its screen displays at different times of the day. These would be the screens headed TOU Rate 1, TOU Rate 2 and Actual Tariff Price (TOU = Time of Use).
    To nail down the register and switch timings, I’d like to see three or four sets of photos, taken at 07:30, 09:00 and 15:00 or 22:00. This may help to explain why:
        
    Time GMT Economy 7 Economy 10
    06:30 Offpeak Peak
    09:00 Peak Peak
    14:00 or 21:00 Peak Offpeak
    (The fourth set would have to be taken at 01:30 BST when the TOU should be offpeak regardless of tariff. If the others timed pictures are present, I think we could assume what ones taken between 01:00 and 06:00 would show).
    The screenshots would also show the state of the ALCS, the switch for the fifth (offpeak) meter contact. If you do post them, please put the time taken into the caption.
      
  2. Screenshots of pages from your online account:
    -   The Plan page, showing the Prices and unit rates with timings;
    -   The meter reading history page;
    -   The billing history page for your last complete month, showing the Meter readings and Charges sections.

[If you’re at all concerned about privacy, feel free to send me a private message instead of posting here. There should be no personal information in any of this, though.]
  

This is all necessary, because there are so many different bits of the puzzle that all have to be in place for the thing to work properly: the TOU settings for the meter registers, the ALCS timings for the offpeak circuits, the tariff timings and the correct transfer of readings and tariff data to the billing system. We’ve seen faults in one or more of these elements in every sorry case: the ALCS turning heaters on according to E7 timings while the registers are changing at E10 times and vice versa; plan pages showing peak prices at night and offpeak during the day, offpeak readings transferred to billing as peak and vice versa. I suspect it’s gone wrong for so many customers because of a lack of coordination between the several different OVO teams involved. So, you’re not alone!

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA
Shads_OVO
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Hi @BruceH,

 

I’m really sorry to hear that you’ve been experiencing this. 

 

Although there isn’t an automatic process for letting you know when it’s resolved, a member of the team should reach out to let you know when your account has been rebilled. Please keep us updated on the outcome of this. I hope this is sorted for you asap.

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