How can I change the reading frequency of my smart meters? I have half hourly for gas and daily for electricity...

I’ve moved your post here, @martinbucknall, there’s some handy info in the above thread. 

The team aim to respond within 3 working days, but if you’d like this looked into sooner, please pop our team a message on Facebook, Twitter

Thanks! 

Thanks for posting that comment @martinbucknall and welcome to the Forum.

Firstly you are doing the right thing by sending emails. During the Coronavirus Pandemic, many of OVO’s staff are working from home. An email can easily be forwarded to the most relevant person.

Could you please clarify… when you write that your gas meter was changed to send half hourly readings, are you referring to a physical exchange of your Smart Gas Meter, or do you mean that a software command was used to make the change?

Even if you mean the latter, there are two entirely different changes which could be made:

a; a SMETS Command sent to your meters to specify that HH readings are to be stored, ready for collection after midnight.

b; a change to the user-interface for your MyOVO page, such that the HH readings are to be displayed as a Usage-graph.

As you will see from the discussion above, other customers are reporting that the HH readings are being collected, but that those readings are not being displayed since their accounts have been switched to the new Billing Software.

Thanks for the quick reply!

The smart meter has been in place for a long time, it would have been a software change. The phrase I used was a quote from the OVO email to me, so I can’t say if it’s (a) or (b).  What I can say is that following my initial contact a month ago, requesting half hourly readings, I successfully got half hourly readings for electric but only daily for gas.

Thanks for the clarifications @martinbucknall 

So what you’re reporting is almost identical to what @oldterry2 has written earlier in this same Topic.

If it’s an issue to do with the User Interface for some customers on the new Billing System, then that’s down to the Programmers in London.

If it’s the case that commands need sending to the Smart Meters then that falls within the remit of the SMETS Engineering Team, based in Bristol.

The Bristol Team have lost access to their “playground” in the meter-test-lab due to the Pandemic. So that is causing all sorts of delays, especially when a reported issue affects a few customers, but not others.

They have to take great care before sending out remote code updates and commands to Smart Meters because they risk crashing the system and losing the ability to send further commands. I know… because that happened to me last year whilst I was a test-site!

Equally the Programmers may well devise a fix for an issue relatively quickly. But the new code has to go through rigorous testing before they’ll be allowed to apply it to the “live” Billing System!

Another 4 weeks have gone by and my problem is still unresolved. Even worse, OVO are not replying to my emails and if I call, a message says only emergency calls are being taken.  Does anyone have any suggestion, short of involving the ombudsman?

Really sorry to hear about that experience, @martinbucknall 

Our email response time today is over 2 days, so it might still be in a queue to be looked at. Alternatively we’re currently taking about 45 minutes to get back to customers on Facebook and Twitter. 

how do i revert back to monthly reads

Could you give us some more details please?

Do you have a smart meter?

What's happening at the moment that you want to change?

yes i have a smart meter which is sending half hour reads but i want monthly reads

You can contact OVO customer service, when they're open after Christmas, and they can change it. 

Is there a particular reason you don't want half hourly readings? In makes no difference to your bills and many people find the data can be useful, to help identify when they're using the most electricity.

Your other option is Daily readings rather than Monthly readings. If you want to make sure your account balance and meter readings are always up to date, we tend to recommend Daily or Half-Hourly Readings. Only use Monthly if you absolutely don’t want to even have accurate account balances more than once a month.

my smart meter is sending readings every 18 & 26th and no other time, is there anyway so it sends weekly readings?

That sounds odd. Smart meters can be set up to take a reading every half hour, once a day or once a month. It shouldn't be possible to take two readings a month.

You can get the frequency changed by calling OVO customer service, after Christmas. It can't take a weekly reading so you might want to go for a daily reading.

It sounds to me as if the most likely culprit is a corrupted read schedule. This is an easy fix and I agree with the above. If it were me, that’d be the first thing I’d try and see if it helps.

If it does, then you should be good to go. If it fails to resolve the issue, further investigation may be required.

How often does my smart meter transmit readings to OVO?

That depends on the settings. Ideally every 30 mins but that’s normally by request. 
There should be a record of daily readings on your account page. 
https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings

If you have more frequent readings enabled you will be able to see this on a usage graph

https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage

It transmits data once a day. It can record data every half hour (assuming it has been set up this way) but sends all the data for a day in one go.

The data is actually available via 3rd party apps during the day and so the data is available as collated by DCC (data hub)

• A Thirst For Data: My Guide to third party Apps

but OVO only poll for their data once a day and present it the following day