Is it possible to re-enroll a SMETS2 smart meter that was made 'dumb' by an engineer on site?

To charge an EV, a dumb meter works fine - I mean, dual rate tariffs work just fine with dumb meters. It's a recent trend that some energy providers insist on smart meters to allow an EV specific tariff, but when I had checked it last, the special EV charging tariff didn't work out cheaper than my at-the-time dual rate tariff.

Therefore, I have had my EV charging using a dumb meter since late 2021. I did get a smart meter installed recently in 2024, but I want to go the opposite way and turn in into a dumb meter. The reason is that the provider was charging me day rate tariff (inadvertent misconfiguration perhaps, though the "inadvertent" part is something I'm not sure about) and when detected, they updated the settings via remote config. If they can do that, they can also, should they want to fleece the customer, charge them day rate tariff for night rate electricity usage in the future again (basically, whenever they want, resetting it when they want as well, so there would be some movement on night rate tariff though most of night rate usage could still be billed at day rate - they control all this remotely). There is a trust issue I now have with the providers. 

They can't do this with dumb meters. So, I'm all for dumb meters because of this.

I suspect that this might constitute fraud and would at least be an infringement of Ofgem rules and the suppliers’ legally-binding standard licence conditions. You have a contract with your supplier to provide electricity at specific rates and (in your case) at specific times. They cannot legally vary these without giving reasonable notice, so you have time to find an alternative arrangement. 

One of the beauties of the smart meter network is the ability to apply changes remotely, e.g. tariff changes, software updates and configuration changes. These powers are strictly regulated, but of course mistakes are sometimes made. A visiting engineer can also get something wrong, but every supplier has a duty to ensure that everything is working properly.  

Your fears are groundless.

About whether these are groundless, I cited specific instance - fact. You however have provided an opinion, not a fact.

What you call a "beauty" of smart meters isn't a beauty to me at all, but a function that affects me rather directly but I have no control over other than monitoring my day rate readings daily at the start of night rate and at the end of it, not something that's viable. 

Why would you side with them and against me using rather harsh an opinion (calling my "fears" groundless) even when presented with something concrete that has happened? 

To each their own. I don't like to be at the receiving end of a fraud and it takes considerable effort and time to get such fraud redressed, so I would rather avoid it than face the possibility of it occurring after having suffered through this so-called smartness once, thank you very much. 

By the way, until I did the grunt work of monitoring the day rate and night rate readings at the start and end of the dual rate tariff times, their position was that the problem was not that I was being charged day rate for night rate usage, but that the day rate usage was okay and I should be charged even more because there's nothing happening during the night rate times.

The default position someone takes is a good indicator of bias.

Thanks for your opinion, it doesn't change mine though.

The fear I was referring to was “they can also, should they want to fleece the customer, charge them day rate tariff for night rate electricity usage in the future again (basically, whenever they want, resetting it when they want ...” This is what won’t ever happen, although, as I mentioned, mistakes can happen. 

I’m not taking anyone’s side. If there was a billing error on your account (“the provider was charging me day rate tariff …”, presumably for night-time usage), the supplier should have rectified it as soon as you drew attention to it and re-billed the account accordingly. Is this not what happened?

It’s also worth noting that once you’ve gone Smart, there is NO downgrade path.

There’s also no way to make a SMETS2 Meter “go dumb” so to speak. That functionality was possible in SMETS1 for a while, but completely eliminated in SMETS2 due to the problems it caused.

Additionally, Traditional Meters are no longer manufactured - this applies to both Credit and Prepayment. VERY limited stocks of them might remain in inventory with a few suppliers, but 99.99999999% of that inventory is either broken, testing-only (which are banned from the field), emergency spares or intended exclusively for exotic setups - you can’t just request any of those.

OVO for example, keeps a handful of Traditional Meters and supporting devices kicking about one of its offices, but these are exclusively for testing and training purposes and cannot be used in the field under any circumstances. The only reason they keep those ones at all is purely so that OVO can train engineers and other staff on how to work with them and test internal systems to make sure they work as intended (and admittedly, as a museum of old stuff, so to speak). I would imagine however, that they’ll be disposed off eventually at some point after the Smart Meter rollout hits 100% of the UK.

Once the stocks a certain supplier has reaches zero, that’s it - game over. They won’t be getting any more of them so ultimately Smart Meters are the only option going forward.

the supplier should have rectified it as soon as you drew attention to it and re-billed the account accordingly. Is this not what happened?

Not yet.  I guess it eventually will happen.  But how they would apportion the day time reads versus night time reads is also quite subjective.  I thought they’d use the long usage history of my dual rate tariff whilst the meter used to work properly with my previous provider - using my closing meter reads with the previous provider (since the error crept in ever since I switched to the new provider), but they want to record the usage for just a week after their engineer has visited the property and checked the meter.  I do not know why they are waiting for the engineer’s visit anyway since they now pretty much know very well it was misconfiguration at their end and which they have corrected by sending an update remotely to the smart meter.  So, no, not rectified as soon as it was brought to their attention and unclear whether I’m going to get a fair refund anyway.  No apologies, no owing up to their mistake, nothing.  Great reluctance to even acknowledge they updated the configuration remotely to fix this.  Initially, reluctant to even acknowledge that the mistake was at their end and presumption that I should be charged even more for night reads not advancing.

 there is NO downgrade path.

Oh welll, shoving something down customers’ throats without the customer having any semblance of control over it. Every update sent to the smart meter must clearly say what it’s changing, what the old and new values are in the update in case any configuration values are changing and how the update affects the function of the meter; I would personally say it should require customer approval as well.  It hasn’t been thought through to safeguard customer interests - the recourse at law is a big roadblock for the customers because a legal redressal is never easy to obtain - too much time and effort needed (and still no guarantee/assurance that it would succeed anyway).

It is what it is.  Resigned to this fate.  I fail to see how the smart meters add value (for the humble customer) so far, other than helping the provider with a very detailed view of how electricity is used in various customer’s premises hour-by-hour (actually, half-hourly updates - a requirement of the new tariff), which, in propaganda, is supposed to help the providers greatly optimise the infrastructure at their end in the future but actually would invariably be used to arrive at novel tariffs which would be more beneficial to the provider than the customer (once they ascertain what the ‘indispensable’ usage times are, they’d start charging more for those periods - this is how free-market economy works so it’s bound to happen sooner or later).  It is already known what the times for peak demands in usage are at a grid/macro level, general usage patterns are known very well at the macro level.

But it feels like I have effectively managed to hijack the thread’s original intent, so I’ll not post about it anymore.  The intent behind my original post was to merely point out there can be downsides of the so-called ‘smart’ meter, it’s not all hunky-dory and therefore maybe the OP should re-consider enabling the ‘smarts’ in their smart meter. 

OK. It sounds as if this wasn’t a billing problem at all, but a problem with the meter wrongly recording peak and offpeak usage. Sorry for misunderstanding, but we have seen cases where the supplier has transferred offpeak readings to the bill and charged the usage at peak rates and vice versa. Since this is a new supply (only a couple of months old), the damage isn’t overwhelming.

The meter is configured in accordance with settings agreed with the DNO - they’re the ones who decide when to offer cheaper energy to suppliers. These takes the form of a set of timings, one for each meter register (peak and offpeak). It’s quite possible for these to be applied to the meter the wrong way round, but it’s equally possible to correct by remote commands. It sounds like this is what has happened in your case. The engineer visit is probably unnecessary; the tests to be done can easily be done by you the customer.

Once it’s confirmed that the registers are now recording at the right times, it will be a simple matter for the supplier’s billing people to calculate your peak/offpeak usage again from day 1 to the day the configuration was changed and re-bill you accordingly.

Again, another helpful feature of smart meters is that they remember what they’ve recorded, some of the data for 13 months. This is available to both customers and suppliers if necessary. You’ll find a wealth of detailed information about smart meters, what they can and can’t do and their advantages and disadvantages at this site: Explaining Smart Meters clearly and without bias: The full story