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dmacbrew
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March 21, 2023
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Overcharging for storage heaters - charged peak rates, at off peak times

  • March 21, 2023
  • 52 replies
  • 2661 views

I am on Economy 7 from 12 to 7.. At precisely 7.00 a.m. every day tariff changes to daily rate as verified by smart meter console (which readings tally exactly with my bill every month). However the storage heaters do not switch off until 7.06. This means that every day I am charged for 6 minutes at the daytime rate when there should be no charge at all. The smart meter was fitted new a year ago. When I realised what was happening I contacted Ovo thinking this was a timing issue which could be remotely adjusted. Ovo however decided to send an engineer to check the meter, After they had twice cancelled the appointment they then decided to try the remote method. This didn`t work however so they decided to fit a new meter. They then cancelled this latest appointment and made another. Then the contractor (SMS) rang to cancel this one and made another, an engineer finally turning up with new meter last week. He was adamant however that the meter was not at fault, saying that it had been set wrongly and after much work on his phone said that it was now done correctly and the heaters should go off at 7.00. Of course they didn`t so I am now waiting for another phone call from Ovo to doubtless make another appointment.

My question is - is this a common occurrence? Their reluctance to put this right makes me wonder if Ovo are deliberately setting the timers to run on after time? Perhaps others should check their heaters to see what time they actually go off.

Best answer by Tim_OVO

Updated on 20/07/26 by Ben_OVO

Hi @dmacbrew, I’ve got some updates advice on this:

 

@Blastoise186  we think that’s not quite right as you may have confused the switching of the ‘ALCS’ with the ‘Randomised Offset’ value on the meter.

 

To clarify, every meter must have a randomised offset applied to the registers when they switch. So every meter on 2 or more rates will have an offset of anything up to 10 minutes applied. There is a good reason for this and it's mandated in the obligations upon suppliers that this is there. It cannot be 'fixed' or removed. No amount of setting changes or jobs to replace will get rid of the meter behaving in this way, the only thing that will happen, if you change the meter is another offset value will be set. 


To explain, the meter has to generate a random number. That number is then multiplied by an amount of seconds and the outcome of that is applied to the register AND the billing rates too. If the meter has a 6 minute offset this applies to both the switching time (we can read how much is applied too as their Supplier) and the charging. So the 6 minutes is applied across the board..  there is no 6 minutes charged at a higher rate because of this. So it will be switching 07:06 to 00:06 and the costs of the energy will apply to the energy used in those times.

 

We have made a rather poor effort in informing our customers of how the meters and overall solution actually works but we’re working on it!

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dmacbrewAuthor
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March 27, 2023

 

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          Blastoise186
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          Blastoise186Super User
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          March 27, 2023

          You only get two different rates at once when there’s both a gas and electric meter on the same network as the IHD. It looks like you’re electric only, so you’ll only get electric data

          Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way! Remember, I'm just like you - AI Powered Evil Geniuses aren't Staff!
          BPLightlog
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          BPLightlogSuper User
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          March 27, 2023

          Thanks for these @dmacbrew . I’m guessing they show the progression from off-peak to peak and then storage heaters off later. 
          If you do get chance sometime to check the terminals of the meter itself, that will also help. 

          Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
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          dmacbrewAuthor
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          March 27, 2023

          I put one heater on @ 3.30. Averaged 72p p.h until 8.00 when it jumped to £1.20 as day-time rates kicked in. Continued as such until the current was cut off @ 8.06

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          dmacbrewAuthor
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          March 28, 2023

          You` have all gone very quiet. What it seems (I hope) is happening here is that the IHD shows the rate changing at 7.00 but in fact it is not. So a design/programming fault in the IHD and I am not being overcharged and everything is fine. Can somebody definitively confirm this? If somebody had mentioned this fault at the start it would have saved a lot of time or is no-one aware of it?

          Blastoise186
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          Blastoise186Super User
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          March 28, 2023

          We’ve been a bit busy recently and as most of us a volunteers, we can’t operate the forum with a thousand call centre agents waiting to take your call 24/7/365. There’s only about 10-15 of us total (including the moderators) and we all have other things we do as well.

          As far as we can tell so far, this seems to be just a quirk with IHDs. I can’t find evidence otherwise

          Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way! Remember, I'm just like you - AI Powered Evil Geniuses aren't Staff!
            BPLightlog
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            BPLightlogSuper User
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            March 28, 2023

            You` have all gone very quiet. What it seems (I hope) is happening here is that the IHD shows the rate changing at 7.00 but in fact it is not. So a design/programming fault in the IHD and I am not being overcharged and everything is fine. Can somebody definitively confirm this? If somebody had mentioned this fault at the start it would have saved a lot of time or is no-one aware of it?

            Just trying to double check so as not to give any false info. Theoretically, the off peak circuit can only be on when the meter itself (not the IHD) switches) but we’ve not actually seen your situation before. That’s often why the meter itself is important as it can show more than the IHD like when which register (for peak or off peak) is incrementing. I do think the IHD is timed separately but would like to check 

            Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
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