Economy 7 mart meter switching times

Perhaps - it rather depends on how accurate your timing estimates are. There is a plan called Economy 9 which has vaguely similar offpeak hours: Smart Economy 9 help | OVO Energy. There is also Economy 10, with ten offpeak hours, but the timings vary around the country.

There are inside the meter probably two timetables involved: the Tariff Switching Table, which sets the times when usage is recorded on the offpeak register, and an Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS) Calendar, which lays down when to turn power on and off to the heating circuit. They should for most domestic customers be identical, but sadly they’re sometimes not. 

If your online account is up and running well - your reference to hourly graphs suggests that it is - then you could compare the totals of what seem to be primarily heating usage with the total for the day, and then see how the meter peak and offpeak register readings compare. We have seen cases where the heating equipment is following an Economy 10 timetable, but the registers are recording offpeak during Economy 7’s overnight hours. 

If you’re in this situation, it might not be a straightforward process to put it right, and it might be necessary to exchange the meter. We’d need a lot more information before being able to make suggestions, so let’s see what your comparison of usage data and meter readings reveals first.

This is my hourly usage for a day when the “off-peak” (heating and hot water fuse box was switched off.  My son was home overnight and he prefers the electric shower which is the spike:

This is the average hourly usage over the full month of May - there is barely any usage overnight and it seems to switch on at 4.30am:

I’ve actually spent a lot of time understanding what is happening as it its quite complicated - I really appreciate your help.  I managed to get the half hourly meter readings via the Bright app.

looking at the guides you have just sent it looks to me like the meter is set to Economy 9?  My reading definitely follow that pattern.

I also used the half hourly data from Bright to compare against the daily smart meter readings in my Ovo account.  Give or take a half hour either way Ovo is set up to record peak usage between 7am and midnight.  The off peak is midnight to 7am.

Thanks for the images - they tell us a lot.
  

Remember ‘the meter’ has two timetables. The one that looks to be set to Economy 9 (offpeak 04:30-07:30, 13:30-16:30 and 20:30-23:30) is the ALCS calendar. The one that’s set to 00:00-07:00 is the Tariff Switching Table. That is all wrong by anyone’s measure - you’re being charged peak rate for 6½ hours of heavy usage that ought to be at offpeak rates. 

• Which tariff did you opt for when the smart meter was installed? 
• Where are you in the country? The first part of the postcode is usually close enough.

We are on simpler energy 2 rate.

We are in NE England. Gateshead

Welcome to the Forum ​@slmoran, and sorry to hear of the issues you’re experiencing. 

I don’t have direct access to customer accounts on the Forum, but it sounds as if the wrong contract may have been added.

What was your original meter setup? Did you used to have a separate meter for your heating? Potentially you had a Radio Tele-switch (RTS) setup. If so your account will be handled by advisors belonging to Squad 70, who deal with more unique metering setups. Please contact them and raise a complaint, if you haven’t done already. Your complaint will be assigned to an advisor in Squad 70, and they should be able to see what the issue is. Our complaints process can be found here.

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks for the advise - we had the old style RTS meter which worked perfectly and the signal was due to be switched off so I had to upgrade to a smart meter - following the upgrade my bills jumped up and I can hear the hot water heating up during the day - I knew something was wrong but convincing Ovo is not easy!

 Thanks.

That would be this one, perhaps:

How this differs from the other ‘restricted’ tariffs is a mystery to me. Economy 10 has the highest prices, Economy 7 the lowest, which is not surprising bearing in mind that it must cost the supplier more to offer 10 hours offpeak than 7. This is a variable tariff, so it’s due to increase significantly from 1 July. You can see all of OVO’s tariffs on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy.

If you were expecting an Economy 7 arrangement, where space- and water heaters charge up overnight, then your switched circuit powering this equipment is on at the wrong times. If you’re being billed at the offpeak rate for 7 hours overnight and the full peak rate for the other 17 hours, you’re being grossly overcharged. So we have to find out if this is the situation you’re in, before we can suggest how to put it right.

 First, could we please see some photos of your installation? Ideally:

• A close-up of the meter itself (with the display lit up by touching a button if necessary) clear enough to be able to read the display and the markings on the meter itself;
• A view of the whole backboard so we can see the main supply cable coming in from outside, and all the cables to and from the meter itself;
• If it’s not clear from the previous photo, a close-up of the meter exchange label - the card left by the engineer giving the numbers and readings of both the old and new meters (assuming he did leave one, as he’s supposed to do);
• A view of each consumer unit (fuse box) clear enough to be able to read any labels the electrician may have left to say which breaker is which.

Once we know what sort of meter you’ve got, we can say how to see what times you’re being charged at peak and offpeak rates, and what times your switched circuit is being energized. The times should be the same, of course, but it sounds as if they’re probably not.

 Thanks.

We are on simpler energy 2 rate. We are in NE England. Gateshead
  

That would be this one, perhaps:

 

How this differs from the other ‘restricted’ tariffs is a mystery to me. Economy 10 has the highest prices, Economy 7 the lowest, which is not surprising bearing in mind that it must cost the supplier more to offer 10 hours offpeak than 7. This is a variable tariff, so it’s due to increase significantly from 1 July. You can see all of OVO’s tariffs on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy.

If you were expecting an Economy 7 arrangement, where space- and water heaters charge up overnight, then your switched circuit powering this equipment is on at the wrong times. If you’re being billed at the offpeak rate for 7 hours overnight and the full peak rate for the other 17 hours, you’re being grossly overcharged. So we have to find out if this is the situation you’re in, before we can suggest how to put it right.

 First, could we please see some photos of your installation? Ideally:

• A close-up of the meter itself (with the display lit up by touching a button if necessary) clear enough to be able to read the display and the markings on the meter itself;
• A view of the whole backboard so we can see the main supply cable coming in from outside, and all the cables to and from the meter itself;
• If it’s not clear from the previous photo, a close-up of the meter exchange label - the card left by the engineer giving the numbers and readings of both the old and new meters (assuming he did leave one, as he’s supposed to do);
• A view of each consumer unit (fuse box) clear enough to be able to read any labels the electrician may have left to say which breaker is which.

Once we know what sort of meter you’ve got, we can say how to see what times you’re being charged at peak and offpeak rates, and what times your switched circuit is being energized. The times should be the same, of course, but it sounds as if they’re probably not.

Thanks - hopefully these pictures are what you need.

Hopefully these pictures are what you need - thanks

Thanks for the photos ​@slmoran. I’ve sent you a private message - please get back to me when you can 👍.

Hi again ​@slmoran,

Just to reassure you, we’re looking at this one behind the scenes today. I’ll be in touch when I’ve got more news - hopefully won’t be long.

Hi again ​@slmoran,

Great news - we’ve got everything sorted with your meter. The issue was that, following the installation, the meter has been rate switching at the Economy 7 times but load switching (storage heaters and immersion) at Economy 10 times.

This has now been sorted, so you should start noticing everything coming on when it should going forward. £30 credit will also been added to your account, which will more than cover the usage at the incorrect times. 

I hope this helps, and please let us know if you have any further questions.

Thank you so much for going to all that trouble - it makes it so much easier to see what’s going on.

The meter you’ve had fitted is the same as my own (if anyone asks you, tell them it’s an Aclara SGM 1416B). The EDMI box on top of the meter is the Communications Hub, hoping to connect to the Smart Meter Wide Area Network (SMWAN or just WAN for short) vis Long-Range Radio (LRR). 

The display screen tells us a lot:
  

  
I should have asked you to note the exact time when you took the picture, because:

• The Active Tariff Price, 17.690 p/kWh, is the Offpeak unit rate 16.48 p/kWh shown on your Plan page + 5% VAT, so usage at the moment the photo was taken was being recorded on the offpeak register;
• The little labels in the bottom right-hand corner tell us that both Load Control switches (LC1 LC2) inside the meter were closed at the time. This means the switched circuit (called OFFPEAK by whoever labelled the Consumer Unit shown in your second picture) was live and heaters may have been on.

That is exactly as it should be for the duration of your offpeak periods. Now you’ll have to watch the meter for a few minutes at the start of what appears to be one of your offpeak periods. I can’t tell whether it’s supposed to be Economy 9 or Economy 10 or indeed something else, so your observations will have to pin it down. The offpeak periods (GMT) might be:

Economy 9   - 03:00 - 06:00, 12:00 - 15:00, 19:30 - 22:30
Economy 10 - 00:00 - 05:00, 13:00 - 16:00, 20:00 - 22:00

… but I can’t be sure from the info I’ve found. The timings will be an hour later during summertime. Sadly, none of the start or end times coincide!

You said you were looking for the Economy 7 hours so perhaps that’s the tariff you were supposed to be on. As far as I can tell, they’re the same in the whole Northern Powergrid area, 00:00 - 07:00 GMT and an hour later in BST. It should be a simple matter to tell whether either of your timetables match them. At 08:00 precisely, the meter display should be just as in the picture above if Economy 7 is in force, and it should change within the next 15-20 minutes. If it’s not as above, then you’re not on Economy 7.

Last - for now - we haven’t mentioned the IHD. Did the meter engineer leave one with you and explain how it works (he should have done!)? If you got one and it’s working, it could save a lot of meter-watching; it will show traffic-light red when a heater fires up, it should show the active tariff price at any time, and it may even show a countdown to the next tariff change.

And a wee bonus: a little light reading for bedtime
https://www.smartme.co.uk/docs/Aclara-SMETS2-Single-Phase-Electric.pdf (4.5MB)