THTC meter - Removal Request

An oracle I may be, a psychic I am not.

We have already given our best available advice. You can't just arbitrarily go from THTC to standard Smart Meter.

I’m curious if it will be possible to go from THTC to one smart meter on Economy 7, or would some alteration in wiring need done?  I think Economy 7 would actually be sufficient for me.

It’s not that simple I’m afraid - and not just because you’re on OVO. I’d be giving the same advice no matter who you were with.

If you’re in a Load Managed Area - something that the DNO dictates rather than the Supplier - then you can’t come off of THTC at all unless you’re willing to do away with ALL Storage Heaters and Immersion Heaters. Your DNO will be able to tell you if you’re in one - simply ask them and they can check. In this situation, you can only get a Smart Meter once the right type is ready to go. While you can leave OVO and attempt to switch to another supplier, I cannot give you a 100% guarantee that your preferred supplier will be able to support your setup. There is a risk that they’ll choke on it and bounce your supply back to over OVO, thus failing the switch process. Additionally, even with a Smart Meter, you’d have to remain on THTC and may find your supplier options limited to exclusively those capable of doing Smart Meter based THTC.

For your information, AFAIK Octopus is not recommended for THTC - they don’t have very good support for it. You’ll need to do your own research other than that as I can’t keep track of every supplier 24/7/365.

If you are NOT in a Load Managed Area, migrating to Economy 7 may be an option. You will almost certainly have to do some potentially extensive re-wiring at your own cost - neither the DNO nor your Supplier will be liable for this - and would have to renegotiate your Tariff as well as having the meter swapped out. The only path in this situation is to Smart Meters however, as there will be no upgrade/migration path that involves staying on Traditional Meters. You might then be able to change to any Supplier that offers E7, but please don’t switch immediately as you’d need to wait for ECOES to be updated first, which can take several weeks.

@Blastoise186 

So, if I understand this correctly... if I replace my storage heaters with regular electric heaters, and am prepared to move to a non-THTC (and non-E7) tariff, I can get a “regular” Smart Meter?

Correct - as long as you’re eligible to get one and pass the other criteria. You’d need to do these changes over the phone or via Live Chat though as the self-service tooling won’t pick up on it automatically.

However, please discuss with your DNO first to make sure there are no other restrictions that may snag you.

Hi @Blastoise186 

Can I ask if you’re formally representing OVO on this forum? Or are you simply a well-informed forum member?
Thought I’d better check before quoting your advice.

🙂

Hiya! Sure thing, I can answer that for you.

I’m considered to be a Forum Volunteer here. All views and advice I give are my own personal answers. However, some of my answers may be supercharged from information OVO and/or an industry contact gives me directly - I usually tell folks when that’s the case.

As for quoting me, you’re more than welcome to do so. All I ask is that you credit me and link back to the original source.

Thanks @Blastoise186 
You’re advice is very welcome.

I am presently pulling my teeth out trying to get ANY meaningful response from OVO.

It’s been ~6 weeks since I first posed the question whereby if I don’t care about storage heaters, immersion heaters, cheap overnight tariffs, etc can I get a Smart Meter.

I wouldn’t have thought it was such a difficult question, but it seems to be beyond OVO’s abilities to answer.

However, the fight continues (now with my local MSP and the Minister for Net Zero being updated on “progress”).

And there you go… was just on Web Chat with the “Support Team” and they sent me the usual message that “We can’t update a THTC mater to a Smart Meter at the moment” and then killed the Chat - completely disregarding the fact I have mentioned on multiple occasions that I don’t want my THTC meter upgraded to a Smart THTC meter - I want to go to a Single Tariff with a Single Meter.

The incompetence and wilful negligence is truly world class.

The best thing to do is migrate to a THTC capable Smart Meter and then switch to single-rate afterwards. It’d be the least messy option in terms of wiring and would retain the drop-in replacement element.