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Has anyone successfully moved to Economy 10 with OVO and was your experience?

A few weeks ago I received an email from OVO about the removal of the RTS signal and suggesting I book an appointment to replace my meter. I was a THTC customer so I chose Economy 10 and booked the appointment.

Six days ago the new meter was installed with an In House Display (IHD). The IHD is operating in accordance with the Economy 10 tariff but the meter is supplying power according to Economy 7 times, i.e. power comes to my storage heaters between 01.00 and 07.00 but I am being charged the lower rate at Economy 10 time periods. That means I am being paying the higher rate to charge my storage heaters overnight (and it is getting cold in highland Scotland)

OVO customer support first of all offered to re-program the meter in 6 weeks; they delay because they needed to wait until communication with the meter was established (?). I managed to negotiate them down to making an appointment for a site visit in 2 weeks time.

Tens of thousands of these THTC meters need to be replaced before next June. This is a huge undertaking and my experience indicates the need for a separate help line for follow up support. It has taken me a week and a lot of investigation to get to this stage. My contacts with OVO support via on-line chat have been like wading through treacle. I think OVO need to get on top of this asap because there are very many vulnerable people using the THTC tariff with storage heaters.

An additional complication is that storage heater users have been encouraged to replace old heaters with Dimplex Quantum heaters. The preferred installation uses two power sources - one a 24 hour supply for the heating controls and the other so supply the bricks from off peak. There is a different internal cable setup for a single supply. THTC provides these supplies through two meters. In my ignorance I thought moving to one meter would mean one supply. Apparently the wrongly installed Economy 7 meter provides two supplies. 

Does anyone know if Economy 10 is one supply being billed at the different rates depending on time od day. The IHD would tend to support the later as it is happily billing me as per the Economy 10 tariff.

I hope this lengthy post wiil help me and the wider community with your responses.

Tarriffs are  26.2p standard  21.26 economy  62p standing charge, which I think is a ripoff.
 

Did you get those figures in writing, e.g. in a change of tariff email? I’m asking because I couldn’t find a plan with those rates on OVO’s plans page. 

Why do you think this is a rip-off? So long as you’re using more than ¼ of all your electricity at offpeak times, the Economy 10 plan will be cheaper than the price-capped Standard Variable Tariff. Have you compared with other suppliers?

​@Blastoise186 ​@Firedog 

It is now 2 months since my RDS meter was replaced but off peak power is still being delivered at Economy 7 times, instead of the Economy 10 service I requested. Two of OVO’s deadlines have now been missed.

My latest online chat person said my case is with the ‘resolution team’, they were not able to provide me with a response time, or contact info for that team; I was advised that the ‘process needs to be followed’ and someone would be in  touch.

(I wish I knew what the process is and where I am in it. I don’t appreciate being treated as if I am stupid.)

I live in not very rural Perthshire and don’t understand why I cannot get the service OVO encouraged me to request. If any OVO rep is monitoring this, I would appreciate an explanation. I am happy to be patient if I am kept informed. 

It is encouraging to hear other users have successfully transferred to Economy 10 but I would advise them to take careful observations to confirm their off peak supply is arriving at the correct time.  

 

 

​@Abby_OVO I think you fixed one of these earlier. Got the same magic tricks ready for ​@Keast ?

Tarriffs are  26.2p standard  21.26 economy  62p standing charge, which I think is a ripoff.
 

Did you get those figures in writing, e.g. in a change of tariff email? I’m asking because I couldn’t find a plan with those rates on OVO’s plans page. 

​@Firedog these are the figures (inc. VAT) for E10 where I live - 30 miles north of Inverness

… ​​​​​​ these are the figures (inc. VAT) for E10 where I live - 30 miles north of Inverness
 

I just checked the prices, and found these:
 

  
Close, but not close enough … A penny here or there can turn into pounds when you calculate the costs for an electrically-heated household over a longer period, and this can alter the results of comparisons between suppliers.

Hey ​@Keast 

 

Sorry to hear about this.

 

​@Abby_OVO I think you fixed one of these earlier. Got the same magic tricks ready for ​@Keast ?

Thanks Blastoise!

 

I’m going to reach out to you via private message to take some details and see if we can do something remotely about this. 

 

Look out for pm here soon: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview.

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