Can I get some help with understanding metering?

Hey, welcome ​@elecbuzz22 !

Firstly, congrats on the new job! I wish you the ABSOLUTE best of luck with it!!!

You might be able to get some of your answers from https://smartme.co.uk so feel free to check that out - we use it here all the time. When it comes to the deep stuff on SMETS, SmartMe has that covered so I’ll let you check that out.

DCC is basically the network operator for the Smart Meter network, you can check them out via https://smartdcc.co.uk - but let me know if you had specific questions. :)

Hot Shoes are basically used for gas-first installs/upgrades so that a comms hub can be deployed prior to a Smart electric meter being put in - the comms hub can be re-mounted later once both gas and electric are Smart.

Revenue protection matters are complicated. Tampered Meters are ALWAYS replaced but the blame will be pinned on whoever the Supplier thinks did the Tamper - if the new tenant just moved in and the Supplier thinks they didn’t do it, they won’t be punished. They WILL be punished however, if the Supplier thinks they did do the tamper - not always easy to figure out!

The 1:1 relationship between Meter and MPAN/MPRN has always existed since the current system came in - it’s a Meter Point after all. :)

One of the biggest reasons though, is that each MPAN/MPRN keeps track of Meters that have been previously used on a particular Meter Point, the active Meter, Supplier history (current and previous) details about what service is provided and a bunch of other stuff. Multi-Meter setups will have Related MPANs for the additional meters - but these are decommissioned once the multi-meter setup is replaced with a single meter for any reason.

Got more questions? Throw em our way! Tell ya what… Feel free to introduce yourself to ​@Bradley_OVO too. If you stick around for a while, you’ll be able to learn and maybe help out around here. And helping out around here has its perks...

Thanks so much for the warm welcome and help with my inquiries!

Rlly appreciate and I might have some more questions going forward, will try not to be too much a bother. Already feeling more confident in the role with these answers 😊

Hehehe, someone like you is absolutely never a bother to us at all. In actual fact, it’s like a breath of fresh air for me - gives me a break from the usual questions! :D

Feel free to stop by literally anytime and we’ll help ya out. We might in some cases need to focus on another user first, but we’ll always know you’re waiting and we always aim to reply to any questions as soon as we can get a spare moment. :)

With all that being said… There are certain types of tampering which even a Smart Meter won’t immediately detect. For complicated reasons, I’m forbidden from revealing any details of those but I suspect you’ll run into them sooner or later, assuming you haven’t already.

In those cases, the Meter might not always need to be replaced but the situation will 100% absolutely be made safe and any damage repaired as appropriate. But the customer will definitely be billed for the repairs in all cases - as well as being forced to repay whatever energy was abstracted/stolen.

But I can say this much… The Supplier will absolutely 1,000,000% be entitled to force-fit a Smart Meter in tampering related cases, partially to help detect any further tampering incidents, but also to help calculate what was stolen more accurately. This would definitely be one of the (few!) reasons where a Smart Meter upgrade is non-negotiable.

Thanks so much!

Actually had another question, this has come up at work rn haha.

If 2 single phase meters are on the same MPAN can they be merged? Or is the typical process to change one to SMETS2 and remove the other? 

Thanks in advance

It’d be the latter - the first Meter would be swapped for an S2 Smart Meter (and the MPAN record updated to reflect that!) while the second Meter would be removed and the MPAN for that one completely decommissioned, which also wipes out any further Standing Charges for it as they’re done on a Per-MPAN/Per-MPRN basis.

This is mostly done in cases of Multi-Rate Meters like Economy 7/9/10 but also applies to basically all the RTS Meters and non Smart Meter managed multi-rate stuff. Do note however, that a Radio Teleswitch and/or a Local Timeswitch is not considered a Meter Point by itself and therefore won’t have an MPAN - it’d be attached to the MPAN of the paired Meter (unless the Meter has a built-in timeswitch of course).

Thanks, that was really helpful, appreciate the response

Morning ​@elecbuzz22 

A warm welcome to the OVO Forum! Congratulations on your new role - the world of Metering is very interesting and varied; I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Some excellent replies from ​@Blastoise186 here, and we look forward to hearing from you again!

Just wondering. Is it possible to get a brief overview on comms  hub? I get the gist of them communicating with DCC. But what the different types like SKU2 and dual band? And aerials are involved too. 

SKU1 is the regular type for the Central and Southern Territory. Both Toshiba and WNC make them and there’s nothing particularly special there. SKU2 is one that can use external aerials to help with signal issues, but also supports Mesh Networking capability to help even more in really tricky areas. Long story short with that is that SKU2 (and SKU3) Comms Hubs can mesh together to create an extended WAN where any units that do have an uplink to DCC will share that with all others in range so that they too can also make a connection. Otherwise, all of these run on Cellular connections to Telefonica (aka O2).

Then you’ve got the EDMI Standard 420 and EDMI Variant 450 (as well as Dual-Band variants of both) which run on a Long-Range Radio setup to Arqiva and are used for the Northern Territory. Other than using a different way to reach DCC, there’s not much else that differs from the other units.

There are also Dual-Band equivalents of each type.

T1 Aerials are the basic type, usually just to get round obstacles, while T2 deals with weak signals as a booster that helps in most cases, while T3 are the monster external aerials that can seriously boost the signal, but DCC hates giving the T3 ones out for some reason, probably cuz they’re expensive I guess.

Dual-Band Comms Hubs use two different frequencies to make the Home Area Network function, just like with Wi-Fi this gives them more speed but less range on the higher frequency, and less speed but massively more range on the lower frequency - good for cases where the Meters are far apart!

Pretty complicated stuff! :)

​@ben  Thanks so much for the warm welcome! Indeed I am very excited about this field, genuinely find it interesting

​@Blastoise186 Amazing, clear overview. Would not find info this useful elsewhere online, thanks as always!

Wrong ben! XD

Looks like you accidentally pinged a random Ben rather than ​@Ben_OVO ! :D

If you have ​@Ben_OVO then I may have just summoned ​@Ben_OVO . If so, sorry ​@Ben_OVO . XD

Don’t worry, it happens sometimes. With over 100,000 registered users on here, there’s only so many possible Ben username combinations available. :)

But yeah, feel free to stick around and keep asking questions - or even answer a few! We can teach you a lot if you want, plus if you help out… Good things may happen...