Are Economy 10 tariffs available yet?

Still a little confused. I need to know that the storage heating & water comes on only during the 3 x E10 off-peak periods & is off for the remaining 14 hours. Really a completely  separate circuit from everything else, which should be on for the 10 hours off-peak & on for 14 hours peak. If that happens then surely I should be able to easily distinguish heat/water usage from everything else. My concern is because previously people have been charged for peak usage when it should have been at off-peak rates. (Thought they were on E10 when actually they were on E7). 

Following this with interest as I am currently on a 2 meter THTC set up and will need to make a decision soon too.

I can’t decide if I would manage with Economy 7 or would perhaps also be better with Economy 10 to give the storage heaters another boost during the day up here in chilly Scotland.

Also, would Economy 7 maybe be more conducive to being able to move to other suppliers as several still offer Economy 7 but I don’t think many offer Economy 10?  

Another query is, if I opted for Economy 7 and my meter was set up for this but decided later Economy 10 would be better, would it require an engineer to come out and alter the meter, or could it be done remotely?

I certainly will Chris but please see my question posted a short time ago. I am worried about the whole thing!

I dismissed E7 many years ago as I too need that storage heater boost even in Gloucestershire! I therefore went for SSE Superdeal & migrated to Ovo & it has always worked pretty well. We have a couple of wood burners too so that is a good addition. I am opting for E10 as that gives an extra option with an additional evening boost although will try & not use it too much due to cost. My concern is that the smart meter will not switch off the storage heaters/water at the end of the off-peak periods & will leave them on to run @ peak rates.

Past postings suggest people have suffered this, hence my concern. With Superdeal we have had to have 2 meters giving a total of 4 readings (day, night, water & heating). E10 needs to separate the heating/water with everything else as everything else goes cycles from peak to off-peak. Heating/water only required off-peak!

Waiting to be convinced or will cancel smart meter & review later.

Thread trawl in progress. Please wait for updates while we catch up.

Thanks for understanding.

Ok, I think I’ve caught up with some of this so that I can make an initial response. Please bear with me as the Thread Trawl continues, further posts will be added shortly.

@Mo59 in that case Economy 10 is probably better so you get the extra boost. The last thing you want is to run out early in the afternoon and have nothing for the evening! IMO Economy 7 is of less benefit if you get freezing cold Scottish weather more often than not. You should consider your welfare as well as your wallet.

Switching between the two is possible and WOULD NOT require an engineer visit, but I would personally recommend going with one and sticking with it if possible.

@johndebs The advantage of a Smart Meter is that it keeps a copy of ALL billing data locally - this can be used to repair billing issues later if needed - including fixing Peak/Off-Peak timing issues. The meter knows exactly when power was used, which means that if E7/E10 got crossed, OVO could use the meter data to fix it and correct the bills. This cannot be done with any RTS Meter and it’s a massive advantage that works in your favour.

The meter will control the heating/hot water directly so that it operates only during Off-Peak hours unless you manually hit the Boost button to let it run on a temporary one-time override during Peak hours at Peak rates - but that’d be solely at your discretion as to whether and if/when you hit the Boost button or not. Otherwise, it will NOT permit them to run outside of Off-Peak hours without your explicit instruction to do so. It’ll have a dedicated circuit to run that stuff on so that it has 100% control over preventing unwanted Peak usage.

If it doesn’t do that, it’s an easy fix - one SMETS Command to update ECAUL/ALCS Configs can instantly reprogram it with the right hours and force it to do what you expect without an engineer visit. You can’t do that with RTS.

Everything at your property will otherwise work exactly as it does now.

Thanks Blastoise186 , some reassurance that all will be well. Have a good weekend.

You haven’t actually said so, but I assume that your heating equipment is on a separate circuit switched on and off according to the tariff timings. This is exactly what a five-wire smart meter would do, too. The fifth contactor feeds the heaters, and it is turned on and off by a switch within the meter. It has been a bit hit-and-miss whether this works as intended straight after the new meter has been installed, but it can usually be configured correctly in a few days. 

I take it you’ve done your sums to find out the relative costs of Economy 10 v. Economy 7. You would need to know just how much electricity you use over a year at peak and offpeak rates. If the heating usage has been metered separately, there may be some extra benefit with E10 because power-hungry appliances (e.g. tumble dryers, cookers, washing- and washing-up machines) can be run during the daytime E10 offpeak periods at a cost of something like 7.5p/unit less than they would cost to run on an Economy 7 tariff.  The rates depend on which region you’re in, and I think there are bits of Gloucestershire in three different regions. The differences between regional rates may be more than you imagine. 

You can see the basic current and future rates (to December) in these tables, which will give an idea of how much prices for you might go up on 1 October. OVO then has some leeway when determining how to make the split between peak and offpeak rates.

Yes our heating/water are on a separate circuit switching on & off as you say hence having to have 2 meters to give the 4 separate readings.

E7 has never been an option for us due to having to have a pm boost to the storage heaters. Superdeal has achieved this quite well for nearly 30 years with SSE despite their customer service of good diminishing to awful over the years! Don’t ask! We have been given the choice by Ovo to switch to E7, E9 or E10 & hope that by choosing E10 we shall get a reasonable result & similar if not slightly better results than Superdeal. No other options exist so we have to go with it.

Like many the THTC system, that has worked so well for so many years, is being turned off. I’ve been offered Economy 10 as an alternative. With THTC my hot water and storage heaters are heated automatically during off peak periods. As far as I can see only the storage heaters will work in off peak Economy 10? Can’t see why as currently both hot water and storage heaters are on the same circuit.

You’d think that it would be that difficult to replicate the THTC system in a single smart meter. You’d also think that having provided us with a number to call the people might have all the answers to these questions!

Why do you think that your water heater wouldn’t work at the same times as the space heaters? There are some THTC systems that have different arrangements for space heating and hot water, but then they wouldn’t be on the same circuit.

If heating (space and water) are on the same circuit separate from the one that’s always live, then the separate circuit will be fed from the meter’s auxiliary load tail. The timings will be set by the ALCS* calendar in the meter, and the meter registers (peak and offpeak) will be set to switch at the same times. What those times are varies a lot, and I’m not quite sure how that is determined. The installation engineer may know ... 

It is quite common for both the space heaters and the water heater also to be wired up to the 24-hour circuit; the space heaters so they have power to any controls and internal fans, and the water heater to allow for a boost if somebody uses all the hot water and it’s a long time until the next regular offpeak session. 

Once you know when the installation is due to take place, you might help to make it as painless as possible if you contacted Support via webchat so you could send them photos of the current set-up, along with any information that you think the engineer might need, like what sort of heaters you have. Where the meter is located will affect how well it will be able to communicate, so say whether it’s in an enclosure on an external wall or in a cramped cupboard under the stairs, say. Again, photos help.

The engineer will appreciate it greatly if you’ve taken a feather duster, a brush and dustpan and/or a hoover to the meter’s lair beforehand to deal with any accumulation of cobwebs, dust and debris. 

*   ALCS - the Auxiliary Load Control Switch inside the meter that turns power on at the start of an offpeak period and off at the end of it.

Booked in for today. Engineer called, cannot install due to our unusual setup, requires a change to 3 phase system by the grid people, and then a reschedule with OVO. Suggested several times to OVO that they sent an engineer first to ascertain our system or receive a photograph but both suggestions were rejected. Result - wasted journey for engineer, wasted day waiting in & wasted time arranging the meter ‘room’! 

Why is that? Are you running a cannabis farm?

We are on Superdeal & have been for over 25 years. OVO engineer came a couple of days ago to fit an E10 smart meter but could not do the job as we have 2 ‘fuses’ & requires attention from the grid people. All beyond me & totally confused. I have a long standing billing problem with OVO, unable to get my meter readings accepted by them & being pushed to have a smart meter fitted when my system will not accept it! A complete shambles.

Thanks. Three-phase supplies are normally only needed where the power draw could exceed the ‘normal’ 15-25 kW. The old Superdeal may have required two separate supplies (and thus two main fuses), one of them controlled by the DNO for load-balancing purposes. Try asking National Grid ED why you have this arrangement and whether they can change it for you. Ideally, you would want a single-phase supply with an 80A main fuse so long as you don’t have (and don’t plan to get) any really power-hungry gear like an industrial-strength EV charger.

I've just moved to Octopus, I was dreading it but it took two days! My complaint with OVO is still with the ombudsman, they still haven't done any of things that he demanded apart from paying £200 compensation. I don't know whether to let it go, or continue the fight!
 

My OVO engineer is supposed to be contacting them in regard to our situation & I assume that we shall have to rebook a smart meter fitting after the DNO have visited. He did indicate that the meter might have to be one that cannot send readings, which seems a backward step to me!

You should probably just drop it and move on. Leaving OVO automatically closes almost all types of complaints and Ombudsman cases immediately, since it’s no longer possible to do anything with them.

The only types you can still do relate purely to the offboarding and getting your final bill sorted out.

Blastoise186, I think you are wrong. According to the Ombudsman, you are able to pursue a complaint despite leaving a company.

Not necessarily. As I said, most complaints are automatically terminated upon leaving the current supplier and/or closing your account for any reason, which can in turn terminate Ombudsman cases on the basis that a remedy may no longer be possible. It is definitely the case that the Ombudsman will abandon ALL complaints related to a supplier that goes bust or quits the market, regardless of status and regardless of circumstances. The rationale behind that is because said supplier would no longer be capable of implementing any remedies at all because it’d no longer be a licensed supplier (the license gets revoked by Ofgem as part of the Supplier of Last Resort Process because it has to be revoked by Ofgem in order to initiate SoLR).

Responsibility for complaint handling shifts to the gaining supplier once you switch away and they cannot access your historical complaints from elsewhere under any circumstances. Likewise, if you simply close your account and aren’t switching to a new supplier at the same property, then whoever is going to be the next customer can’t see nor touch your old complaints either, so there’s not much more than can be done with them unless it’s related to offboarding.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to know when to call it quits and move on.

Hey @pegem & @Blastoise186, 

I wanted to give some further context regarding how complaints work. We would still seek to resolve a complaint either directly with a customer or through the Ombudsman Service, depending on the complaint's path. If a customer chooses to switch away to another supplier with an open complaint, they can do so, and we'll still communicate with them. When a customer complains, they're given a complaint reference number that is unique to that complaint. 
 
If the Ombudsman issues remedies for a complaint, we may be limited to actioning some of these depending on the complaint's open/closed status. In @pegem's case, you referenced a financial offer that's been presented, and if that's accepted, it'd be sent via cheque as there's no open account to pay this into. 
 
I hope this helps you understand how the complaints process works.