Welcome to OVO!

Well done for spotting that your night reading hasn’t been clocking your usage correctly. It sounds like your Economy 7 meter has a faulty time-switch meaning all of your usage is being measured on a single register rather than switching over to an off-peak register.

We’ve got a full guide to meter faults, including potentially broken time-switches here:

Broken Time-switch

• If you have a two-rate meter, sometimes the time-switch that controls the timing of when the registers clock can break. Normally one register stops clocking resulting in all consumption clocking on the other register. In some cases however both registers clock consumption but at the incorrect times.
• In order to resolve this issue reach out to our Support Team to request a faulty meter exchange - good news is that we’ll be able to replace your faulty meter for a sparkly new SMETS2 smart meter. Once the meter exchange goes ahead, we redistribute the removal reading across the two registers using either your annual averages prior to the fault or new meter consumption depending on which is most appropriate. Redistribution is not required if you’ve been charged the same prices for both registers the whole time. 

If your meter fault occurred before a switch, it may affect the accuracy of your opening reading. In order to get this amended we’d need to check whether we’re able to raise a ‘Meter Reading Dispute’ to make sure your account is opened to a reading that fairly reflects your usage. We’ll need at least 2 sets of readings at least 2 weeks apart, taken when the meter was functioning, in order to work out what the reading should have been on the date you switched. Read more about the ‘Meter Reading Dispute’ process here.

Your peak/off peak times won’t change when you switch but may change when we install the replacement smart meter. Find out how to work out the peak/off peak times of your meter here. As you’ve no longer got storage heaters installed you may decide you’d prefer to switch your replacement smart meter to a single rate function, check out this related topic for more advice on how to go about this.

Hope this helps get things sorted!

I had a smart meter fitted in August. It’s never sent any readings to Ovo so I have to do these manually every few days for both day and night readings (economy 7).

For the past two weeks the night rate has not moved at all it’s been stuck on the same number. I reported it to Ovo a week ago and was told it would be looked into.

Any ideas how to get this fixed or how long it takes? 
 

Whilst the cheaper night rate is not moving does this mean I will be charged for the higher daytime rate all the time?  
 

I don’t have much hope in a manual bill as I’m still waiting for a manual bill calculation from June and can’t afford to pay the higher rate for 24 hours instead of 17 hours!

Can you show us some photos please @UnhappyOvoCustomer27 ?

We’ll see if we can help with diagnostics.

Photos taken 3 days apart shows the rate 1 number going up more than it was previously and the rate 2 is exactly the same. not sure what’s going on with it but also when I try to input meter readings online it’s now only giving me the option for one rate rather than adding readings for two rates. 

I see.

You’re technically still in the commissioning process. Give this tool a try.

https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

It just says there has been a problem checking your meter.

I guess it will be another call to Ovo with a long wait and no answers.

Give it another month. It might still be in progress. If there’s nothing by the end of November, that’s when I’d recommend reporting it in.

This smart meter was installed in August so you’d think by now it would be sorted! But instead there are more issues. I really wish I hadn’t joined Ovo. It seems every two weeks I’m calling chasing or reporting something. 
 

thanks for your help and advice

Hey @UnhappyOvoCustomer27,

Sorry to hear your meter’s stopped working.

If your meter is faulty and has stopped clocking consumption for one of your registers, your bill will be re-estimated after your meter is replaced. So if it’s clocking on just the day register this shouldn’t affect your billing. 

We have some guides which might be helpful to you:

My smart meter has not worked for months, now working again.  However, it has left me with hundreds of pounds worth of credit.  The tele advisor failed to understand and simply said to submit a reading but not to worry as I was in credit.  As the meter wasn’t working, there is no record of usage and my estimates have been over written by the (very low) actuals.  I don’t want to have a false rebate.  Any ideas?  Also my IHD has been saying “not commissioned” from the start (several months).  Again, any ideas?

Hi @jo soap and thanks for flagging this one. 

It’s very rare for a smart meter to not clock your usage at all, and far more common for the meter to fail in communicating your usage. Then once communication has been resumed an update to date reading corrects any under/overcharge. 

When the meter started working again, what were the readings? On the meter itself, it should show the final reading of the old meter and the first reading of the new meter on a yellow sticker on the front.

If the meter failing to record your usage, we’ll need to replace it and we’ll look at your historic usage to estimate meter readings for the period since the meter was fitted. Our Support team will be the ones to arrange this. First off I’d love to hear a little bit more about these readings. Can you let us know what you see here: https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings

Tim, the readings as shown below.  It shows that  I used 4 kw in 6 months!!!  I am currently £790 pounds in credit according to my bills.  Also, how do I resolve the issue of the IHD showing “not commissioned”.   

Finally, does a customer get rewarded for their time and effort spent in trying to be honest and pay their bills?  I have spent hours (it seems) hanging on for the telephone advisers only for them to fail to correct the problem!

12 Jan 2023    01322    Manual
4 Jan 2023    01237.339    Smart
8 Dec 2022    00987.142    Smart
26 Oct 2022    00850    Manual
23 Apr 2022    00846    Manual
9 Feb 2022    00000    Manual

Hi @jo soap,

Thanks for sending over those readings. If that was a smart gas meter in m3, I’d say, no problem: just a low summer user. But I’m pretty sure this is your electricity meter, and just as you mentioned, it basically stops clocking for the summer. Sorry to hear about it. 

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

• 8am - 6pm Monday to Friday 

• 9am - 2pm on Saturdays

This saves you having to hang around on the phone or in a queue. They can also see if they can spot the issue with your in home display but with a meter like this, that’s not guaranteed to be reliable even if connected. This guide might help:

Hi I had an economy 7 smart meter fitted Monday and it’s not recording off peak only peak also tariffs are showing single rate. Will this correct itself if left?

Hi @Mart did you have Economy 7 previously or is this new? What sort of meter do you have as these differ sometimes?

Aclara smets2 fitted Monday. Always been on economy 7.   Just called ovo and didn’t get anywhere the guy said we don’t do economy 7 smart meters  !!!

They do but it might need to be set up right. I can’t get E7 as I’ve not had it at this property and their billing system can’t cope but I’ve seen others with E7 and smart meters here. Does you plan give E7 rates?

Yes plan is peak/ off peak rates but new meter only set for single rate 

Is it a 5 terminal meter or a standard 4? Also do you have storage heaters or are you just wanting to power other appliances overnight?

It’s a 5 and yes I have storage heaters. Hopefully a case has been opened now

Ok that sounds hopeful. As long as the second rate register increments for the off peak that should be enough to reset things. The 5th terminal is normally used to supply the E7 rate

smart smet1 stopped readings 13 days ago on both gas and electric , am disabled and can’t take readings and the online meter reading section now asks for on peak and off peak? 
 

it has always been one reading in the past and both worked for 4 years 

Hey @markjeast 

Sorry to hear about the trouble you’re having with your meter readings.

We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum, so you’ll need to contact the Support Team to take a look into this and see why this has changed. They’ll be able to fix any issues that may have occurred.

They’ll likely want to run a health check on the smart meters, I’ve linked below to our first generation (smets 1) smart meter health check page if you want to get ahead before contacting them:

Here is the form so you can submit your answers directly to the team to assess.