Updated on 25/08/25 by Abby_OVO
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!
