Economy 7 tariff changes on SMETS2 meter but fifth terminal not activating at all!

Oh dear, the remote tweak has managed to switch the 2A auxiliary load control relay on at 00:30, but the secondary contactor / fifth port remains inactive (photo below, symbol LC1 is 2A relay).  Good news is though that these changes can seem to be done remotely, so remain hopeful that a fix can be found.

The smart monitor should be showing over 3kW load at this point were the secondary contactor to be closed and supplying the bottom element of the water heater.  Photo below is general set-up for info, showing dedicated fifth port/terminal feed to right side of consumer unit for the E7 bottom element.

The installer has not come back to me when I texted him about the ECAUL request.  I remember him saying that he was sure the ALCS request got the green light on his system, so thought it might be a faulty meter?

Some useful info following, extracted from the Smart Meter User Manual (with some highlighting/annotation by me), might help as background.

Fantastic, smart meter timings for secondary contactor / fifth port look to be working correctly now, hope yours is sorted soon @cwebster17.

Saw (and heard) it switch off this morning at 07:30 so presume it switched on at 00:30.  Smart monitor is showing around 1.5kWh for the 00:00-01:00 window - equating to half hour of 3kW bottom element in cylinder - which makes sense.  Will stay up tonight just to be sure.

@Tim_OVO, are you able to let me know if this was further work on your part (or @Blastoise186) as I did also recently send a letter to Smart Customer Services in Havant to investigate, which they might have also acted on.

Not mentioned here before, but I did also highlight in the letter that the installer seems to have taken the wrong final readings from the old meter, taking the ‘total’ and one of the ‘day’ or ‘night’ readings, rather than the usual ‘day’ and ‘night’ readings - obviously can work out the missing number if you have either of the other two - but did seem a bit odd and not sure if the installer training covers enough of the Economy 7 systems to ensure near-faultless install - might be worth the installation department circulating a memo to highlight recent installation issues?

Also, still puzzled why my smart monitor is not showing the standing charge - still stating 0.000p 😶?  Not a major issue though, it still seems to include the standing charge in the overall totals.

Thanks to all in getting this resolved!

Thanks for reporting back, @SteveBee.

The team have just sent another message to that meter which we're fairly confident should get the correct ALCS triggering. Without going in to too much technical detail, there's a chance what we've sent might not have worked (and we're also working on resolving that issue too), but would you be able to check and let us know if it's worked tomorrow?

Please bear in mind that randomised offset is a thing too. What this means is that whilst your switch time might be 00:30, the meter will switch up to 10 minutes after that scheduled time (e.g. times set are 00:30 to 07:30 but meter actually switches at 00:36 to 07:36).

Hi @Tim_OVO, after a week of observation, I can happily confirm that the smart meter is now operating as wished, with the secondary contactor switching on (and off) for 7 hours overnight.

I can also confirm that the dual tariff and the secondary contactor timings have also stayed synchronised since moving to BST, so now switching on at 01:30 at the same time as the change to the night tariff, and switching off at 08:30 when the tariff changes back to the day rate.

Many thanks for all your help, and hope that the main OVO/SSE support channels are now more switched on (pardon the pun) to this install issue on E7 smart meters and ALCS requests so to help others like myself and @cwebster17 get it sorted without such a fuss - I couldn’t believe it when on first raising it with them they told me to first get a written report from an electrician to confirm that it’s nothing to do with my (consumer side) installation - fancy getting an electrician out at one o’clock in the morning?!

Hi @martincollett ,

Sure thing. The fastest way is for the Support Team to get the ECAUL/ALCS config set up for you via SMETS Commands. Forum volunteers like myself don’t have that power unfortunately (otherwise I’d do it right now!). Try Live Chat via https://help.ovoenergy.com .

Hi @Abby_OVO , yes I did. The person I chatted to didn’t really understand the problem but promised to escalate it. I can see this morning that the LC2 Switch is now being activated overnight, but not the second switch / fifth terminal. This is a different behaviour from previously, but sadly still not right. My immersion and night storage are wired to the fifth terminal, so still no hot water! I’ll try the chat again today, unless there is another way to progress this?

Hi @Abby_OVO , yes I spoke to the Support Team yesterday, but again this morning the ‘Switch 2’ wasn’t activated overnight so still no hot water.

I used the chat to speak to them again just now. I was again told that this was being escalated with the ‘relevant team’ and that I could expect a response in 3 - 5 working days.

This is all very frustrating, the solution to the problem is right here in the forum but I can’t get it applied to my meter. I’m not getting any comms back to let me know how this is progressing within Ovo.

We have seen several customers with this problem here in the forum over the past year or so, and none that I can remember who have got it working properly. That’s not to say that there aren’t any, of course. 

The problem seems to be to get the meter to switch both the registers and the auxiliary load in the right direction and at the right times. One was seeing peak rates applied in the offpeak periods and vice versa, so this may be what you’re experiencing.

There are different models of meter involved in these cases, so it would be good to see a photo or two of yours, clearly showing the current rate and state of the load switches during both a peak and an offpeak period. It would also help to know which supply region you’re in, and if you’re really adventurous, what Time Pattern Regimes (TPR) have been set on the meter.*

*   It’s the TPR that specifies the peak and offpeak timings. To find yours on your computer:

1. Using Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, visit account.ovoenergy.com and sign in. 
2. Open a new tab and copy this URL into the address bar:
   smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/orex/api/supply-points/account/1234567
   substituting your own account number for 1234567 at the end of it.
   This should show you a JSON file with some details of your meter configuration, including the TPRs for its registers. You might save the page contents in a text file for reference.
3. If you want to know what these numbers mean, open this PDF: TPR Reference. Search (e.g. Ctrl-F) for the numbers (make it a bit easier by adding leading zeroes to make up five digits. I.e. if the TPR for Tier 1 is 374, search for 00374).

Does what you find tally with your experience?

The TPR appears to be correct in its timings, but There is something seriously wrong with the tariff on my Smart meter  We are all electric Storage heaters on Economy 10. Since putting the storage radiators on we have had the following readings.

                26 October                            26 November

Peak.         1078                                    1603                       525kwh      £153

Off-Peak     1717                                    1857                       140kwh     £30

Historically there is no way we have spent only £30 on high consumption things such as Storage heaters, and £153 on everything else! 

I believe the tariffs have been reversed. According to the Forums, a problem that OVO have had with other accounts that have migrated from SSE to OVO. The coding for the meter is switching the tariffs correctly, but the tariff number is wrong.  Tarif 1 has been linked to off peak and tariff 2 has been linked to peak. IMHO!