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The night reading on my traditional Economy 7 meter's not moving - How can I get the meter replaced and my bills recalculated?

  • 27 February 2022
  • 12 replies
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J
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Hi Forum friends!  I am now an Ovo customer (previously SSE).  Since moving to my new address last August (2021) it seems that whenever I have tried to submit meter readings for electricity, they have been rejected.  It seems to be because I have two meter readings, day and night usage, and the night usage number doesn’t change.  Because of this, both of the meter readings are rejected, and I am given an estimated bill.  Not sure what to do about this,.  But with the DD amount increasing from £154 pm to £341 pm I want to make sure this is right.  Any ideas out there?  Many thanks.  Joanne

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Best answer by Jess_OVO 28 February 2022, 13:10

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Blastoise186
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Hi there @JoanneF !

I think the best thing to do would be to chat with the Support Team on 0345 0260 712 for this one and ask for help to get a manual reading in and have your payments removed.

I suspect you might have a meter fault as well. Would you be able to post some photos of your meter please?

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J
Rank

Thank you @Blastoise186 for your reply.  Since posting I have also read that some SSE customers on Economy 7 migrating to OVO have experienced problems with the migration not recognising the Econ 7 status and charging everything to the daytime rate.

Here is a photo of my meter…

hmm, tried to upload photo of meter but it doesn’t seem to be attaching.

 

Joanne

 

Blastoise186
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No worries. It’s possible that your account might also be affected by that same issue, but I’m only a forum volunteer so I can’t check for myself. What I do know is that OVO is already working on a fix and all identified accounts will get fixed at the same time.

Your photo didn’t upload for some reason, could you email it to forum@ovoenergy.com and ask a moderator to link it to this thread? It’s something they’ll happily do for you if you’re having trouble.

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J
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Hi @Blastoise186 

Thanks for your further insights.  Yes, I don’t know why the photo didn’t attach (is there a limit on size?).  I will email it to forum@ovoenergy as you suggest.  Does my query on here have a ref number or something so that they can link it up?

 

G
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I had the same (I think) problem on my migration date (16 Dec) until 6 Jan when my Night readings did NOT move and all was being charged at the Day Rate.

after numerous emails/phone calls, it was eventually sorted.  But I did have to keen on to them. Although it did take 8 plus weeks. 
 

I hope you get it sorted soon.

J
Rank

Hi @Blastoise186 

 

I have sent an email as suggested with a photo of my electricity meter attached.  Don’t know why it wouldn’t attach in the Forum facility.

I hope I am able to get to the bottom of what is going on.  Thanks for your help.

Joanne

Blastoise186
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Usually posting images here works perfectly, but in some cases it can be a bit weird. As long as you sent the email from the same email address that’s on your forum account, it’ll be easy for a moderator to track down this thread. And even if not, they’ve got ways. :)

Isn’t that right @Tim_OVO! XD

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Jess_OVO
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Updated on 28/06/23 by Abby_OVO

Thanks for emailing over that meter photo, @JoanneF. I’ll post it below so everyone can see what we’re working with:
 

 

As you’ve got a traditional Economy 7 meter, I’m sure that you've not been affected by the known technical issue as this only affected members with smart meters. It might be that your meter time switch is faulty meaning all your usage is being clocked via your peak register. In that case we’d need to replace the meter and recalculate your meter readings, there’s more details on this process on our faulty meter guide here.

 

Have you been in touch with our Support Team to report the issue yet?

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Blastoise186
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Hmm… A 33 year old electric meter… It looks to me as if upgrading it to a 5-Terminal SMETS2 Smart Meter like the Aclara SGM1416-B would be pretty easy. Given the age of the meter, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s either already out of certification, or due to run out within the next seven years or so regardless of faults.

On the plus side, upgrading would also mean you’d no longer be affected by the RTS Service shutdown that’s planned to happen within the next few years.

Your E7 readings can be recalculated using averages from your new meter once it’s been replaced, and bills can then be regenerated to try and re-balance your usage appropriately across both rates. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be a perfect calculation and might not match your actual usage, but it’ll aim to be as close as possible.

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J
Rank

@Jess_OVO  and @Blastoise186   Thank you both for your input.  Yes, I inherited this old meter when I moved to this house last August 2021.  Thank you for confirming that the migration technical issue does not apply, since this is not a Smart meter.  

@Blastoise186  yes, an upgrade is definitely required I think!  I guess now is the time to get a Smart Meter put in, as you suggest.

It is going to be difficult to do any meaningful calculation of the split between cheap rate and daytime rate since I don’t have any previous usage to gauge it by.  So does that mean I will not get a recalculation until a couple of months’ worth of properly recorded usage with a new meter has taken place?

I will contact the Support Team now about having a new meter installed.

Thank you both for your help.

Joanne

Blastoise186
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No worries. OVO will try to figure things out based on all the available data. It may take a few weeks to a couple of months to fully resolve but the worst that’ll happen is that you don’t get any refund at all. Given that your meter got stuck on the more expensive Day right the entire time, there’s only two realistic outcomes of any such recalculation that I can think of:

  • Nothing much happens because you’ve already paid everything off
  • You get a healthy refund as a result of some of your usage being shifted over and attributed to the cheaper Night rate, which I think triggers an automatic credit to your account

If you ever need a hand again, feel free to stop by. While we can’t really do much with account specific issues via the forum, there’s a lot we can do - and at very least, you’ll walk away with something that helps you out. :)

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
J
Rank

Thanks @Blastoise186.  I have been in touch with Customer Support and they have arranged for my meter to be changed to a Smart meter on 14 March.  I hope there will be a refund as all my usage has been going through the more expensive day rate meter.  

 

Looking back on the situation, it would have been helpful if the supplier had contacted me when they rejected my meter readings instead of simply ignoring my meter reading submissions and repeatedly giving an estimated reading.  I had thought the meter readings were being processed (the gas ones were).  But looks like the computer system just kept rejecting them (no doubt because one of the readings was remaining the same, month in month out).

 

This forum has been really helpful in having human input to a complicated situation.  Robots just can’t do this stuff!  Thanks to all involved.  I will pop back on after the new meter has been installed and give an update, in case this happens to anyone else.

 

Joanne

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