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Will OVO install a smart meter for electricity only, if a dual fuel consumer does not wish to also upgrade their traditional gas meter? And if not, why not?

 

Presumably OVO billing is capable of handling automated meter reading for electricity, and manual meter reading for gas, does anyone know?

 

An advantage of having an electricity meter is to allow dynamic tariffs (e.g. time-of-day) going forwards. But that is not the case for gas, and that part of the solution is fragile or not possible if the distance to the comms hub is too large, along with a question mark of whether the gas meter can fail shut if the battery dies.

 

The call handler I spoke to at OVO would not book this installation on the basis that I am a dual fuel user. Is OVO really refusing to install smart meters on this basis? If so, I would need to raise a complaint with Ofgem, given that OVO customers are already collectively paying for smart meters via their bills.

 

I recently upgraded my parents home to smart meters, they are with a different supplier. That supplier had no issue when arranging installation or at installation time with us reserving the right not to have a gas smart meter installed (we did in the end, but it was our choice). I suppose I can just switch from OVO to this other supplier to get an electricity smart meter only. Disappointing for me as a long-standing customer after hundreds of reminders to get smart meters installed, as I thought until now that OVO was a flexible and forward-thinking company.

 

Thanks

Mike

Updated on 03/09/24 by Abby_OVO

 

Hi,

Strictly speaking, in cases where both fuels are with the same supplier, both meters get upgraded at the same time unless there’s a compelling reason otherwise. It’s easiest to do via https://smart-booking.ovoenergy.com if you’re with OVO. The meters belong to the supplier and what gets installed remains at the discretion of the supplier. They do have to be replaced eventually anyway though so you can’t hold off a Smart Gas Meter forever.

Gas meters will fail Open if you’re in Credit Mode and this has always been the case even before Smart Meters existed - ALL Prepayment Gas Meters will fail Closed, Smart or not. The failure rates have come down a lot though. As for range issues, those have now been fixed with new tech.

Hope this helps

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt reply!

 

The compelling reason for not having a smart gas meter is the distance to the comms hub, DBCH or AltHAN may or may not resolve this. Do you know if that link you gave allows this to be specified so that the installer knows to bring the right kit?

 

Also, do you know if the installer can test for the HAN signal strength BEFORE installing the smart gas meter? 

 

What I do not want is for a smart gas meter to be installed, but then commissioning of this fails. Reading other posts, this leaves the customer in a limbo state, where OVO billing is still expecting manual meter reads for the old gas meter, and there is no way of providing these for the new smart gas meter, as it is not registered with the system. And presumably the battery on the gas meter fails faster due to the continuous failed attempts to reach the comms hub.

 

As there are no benefits of having a smart gas meter (other than no longer providing manual reads), I thought it would be easier to specify upfront to have the electricity smart meter only installed. I cannot see why OVO would not allow this.

 

The ridiculous “solution” from the OVO call handler to which I was left speechless at the time was to relocate one of the meters - this is impossible without huge upheaval and cost to dig up the garden, drive,  concrete floors, taking out and replacing underfloor heating that is in the way, etc.!

 

Mike

 

Well, as it so happens you don’t need to specify anything. By default, the engineers now test for which solutions would work best and fit whatever works. They do also test for potential HAN SIgnal before going ahead. But you can add notes to the job to say that the fancy stuff is needed.

I’ve actually seen this kit for myself too. OVO invited me down to their Bristol HQ last year and I was able to see this new kit in action in the smart meter lab. It works amazingly well at figuring things out. However, the battery drain is minimal as the device only heartbeats every 30 minutes anyway. A lot of what you’ve read is no longer an issue. Failure to commission doesn’t prevent the new meter being registered for manual readings.

AltHAN in particular however, has an insanely long range, theoretically almost unlimited range. :)

The other benefits of smart gas meters are that they help to more accurately predict demand, prevent fraud and help to make switching MUCH faster should you want to switch supplier. It’s worth doing for that last reason alone.

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