How to work my newly fitted smart meter on Economy 7?

To get the readings you’re after, you only need the blue A button (the orange B button reveals more technical stuff). You can ignore basically everything else - that’s there for legal/statutory/regulatory reasons.

Did you get an IHD when the meter was installed? Did the engineer explain how to use it? And is it working as expected? The IHD will give you most of the information you might need day-to-day.

As regards no instructions: ​@BPLightlog did mention that ‘pressing button A cycles through the registers’, as well as giving you a couple of handy links to further information about the meter. There’s a wealth of information here, for example:

OVO SMETS2 smart meter In Home Displays (IHD) - Guide
Smart meter guide for Aclara, Honeywell, Flonidan second generation smart meters

Both on this consolidated list:
Smart Meters and In Home Displays - Topic Hub

And, if you’re really interested, the 100-page, 4.5MB technical manual is available here: Aclara-SMETS2-Single-Phase-Electric.pdf  

Often the search bar at the top of this page will turn up the information you’re looking for. Otherwise, there are plenty of people in this forum willing to help with any questions you can’t find the answers to.
 

That had me stumped for the first time, I’m afraid. There are clearly a lot of properties in that area whose network operator (DNO) isn’t the one I’d expect it to be. If your house was, like mine, served by National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED East), your Economy 7 timings would be the same as mine (offpeak 00:00-07:00). If on the other hand you’re on an independent network, you may have to trust to what the engineer told you, because I don’t have access to the independent networks’ information. Do you happen to know who your DNO is? This page should help you find out: Who’s my electricity network operator?.

[Each DNO has an agreement with each supplier in its area to supply electricity on specific terms, like when the customer can draw power at cheaper rates overnight. That’s why it’s often a bit convoluted to find out just what timings apply to a particular supply.]

Confusing and contradictory advice from OVO.  On one hand information on ‘How to read your smart meter’ says;  - see below copied sections.

Elsewhere it says 

• Press the blue “A” button a few times, until you find a screen labelled “TOU Rate 1”

• Then take down the reading 

• If you have a 2 rate plan, keep pressing the button until you see “TOU Rate 2” and note down that reading as well.

Which instructions are correct?  I’m unsure! 

Various different meter manufacturers have different ways to get the readings.

Mine is also an Aclara and the TOU1 and TOU2 are Peak and Off-Peak respectively.

You should also be able to see a screen showing ‘Active’ which would confirm which register is in use at that time

It should be the default arrangement these days that TOU Rate 1 is for peak usage and TOU Rate 2 for offpeak. That means, of course, that there’s a 50% chance of somebody getting it wrong on your meter’s long and complicated journey from the factory to your wall, so it’s as well to check as soon as you can. 

You may find on the button ‘B’ menu an item labelled Active TOU Number. If you look during the day, this should show a big figure 1. 

Hey ​@whywtf, 

You’ve had some great advice from ​@BPLightlog and ​@Firedog above. Have you had the chance to look over it yet? 

Please let us know if you have any follow up questions. We’ll do our best to help!

Thank you BPLightlog and Firedog, your info was a great help and now sorted.

Cheers