Moving to OVO Economy 10 (with or without storage heaters)

They haven’t a clue,one phone resulted in being told I can’t possibly have evonomy 10 as that’s a business tariff 🤣

I’ve already fed that back. It’s being looked into.

Remember that some staff are new and still learning - genius takes time and I’d like to ask that you try to help them along with that. It helps a ton if you do.

I’m wondering if I should cancel the installation until the winter is over now 🤔

The House Rules require that I leave that decision to you - I’m not allowed to force your hand.

However, I will advise that as we get closer to RTS Shutdown, there will almost certainly be a mad rush of stragglers, so appointments may get significantly harder to grab before the deadline. Only cancel if you want to take that risk - it may be better to just get it done now while it’s easy.

I wouldn’t advise cancelling the appointment, as Blastoise pointed out it doesn’t mean you’ll have any issues. We’ve seen plenty of community members who’ve had positive experiences. 6 weeks is the industry timeframe for any meter exchange. It doesn't mean it’ll necessarily take 6 weeks for the meter details to be updated. 

Reading all these posts has been informative but also scary!

We had an engineer here last Thursday to fit an Economy 10 (or 7 to begin with) meter.

“Unfortunately” that didn’t work due, he said, due to a weak signal. So we’re back to RTS. (Interesting that he didn’t fully disconnect the RTS meter and then fully fit the new one. Think he was expecting a problem - and not for the first time).

I’ve been in touch with DDC (the network provider for OVO) where an Escalations Analyst! tells me that they’ve checked our postcode coverage (12 miles from Perth) and believe our connectivity should be high. Anyway she has forwarded all the e-mails I sent her to OVO. I’ll wait till Thursday of this week - then I’ll call OVO. I’m not expecting much joy from that call.

I contacted DDC directly rather than OVO on the advice of the engineer who tried to fit the new meter. I’m glad I did that since I wasn’t impressed that OVO just sent me a link to a DDC form when I did call them about the problem.

The bottom line is that my wife is very happy that we didn’t make the change with winter on its way. Think we’ll wait till February at least for the meter change even if there’s a rush of people needing new meters. Maybe by then OVO/DDC will have got their act together. Their act isn’t together right now and I no longer want to be a guinea pig.

I think you mean DCC, the Data Communications Company. They are responsible for smart meter communications for the whole of Britain, whoever the energy supplier might be. In Scotland, the network is provided by Arqiva and uses Long-Range Radio (LRR) mainly with the necessary aerials mounted on their many TV transmission towers. DCC tells the supplier whether there is likely to be a good signal where you live, and if there is, the supplier will go ahead with the installation. However, local conditions - nearby structures or geographical features, and the location of the meter in relation to the mast, for example - can affect connectivity, and this is probably your situation.
      

Communication with the smart meter network is DCC’s responsibility - there’s nothing OVO can do about it.
  

That’s not the problem. OVO will have told DCC that the meter they installed wasn’t able to connect adequately to the network, even though they had been told that connectivity was expected to be good; the ball is then in DCC’s court. They have a few remedies, but they’re not known for acting at warp speed. 

You will have to have a new meter before next summer when the RTS transmitters are eventually switched off anyway. If you don’t get one, there’s no saying how your heating and hot water equipment will behave: it might stay on the same schedule it was on when the RTS closed down, but it might just stay permanently on (expensive!) or permanently off (uncomfortable!). The longer you delay having your meter replaced, the more likely it is that you’ll end up in what might prove to be a nightmare scenario. 

Apparently the ball is now in OVO’s court. If I understood correctly (not a natural English speaker at the other end of the phone line) they will resolve the situation with DCC. Might need to wait months. I won't be impressed if I’ll be paying higher rates after RTS switch off. It’s not as if OVO/SSE haven’t known about this issue for years. Their problem, they’d better get it fixed. There must be 20+ others close to me who will this problem. (We’re within 2 miles of Auchterarder - so not up a mountain).

Hi @Sandy42,

I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing this. 

I can see our forum volunteer has already given some good advice here.

Have you managed to get in touch with the team yet? Please keep us updated.

Been in touch with OVO per my last post.

Also, initially, with DCC.

Not sure who Shads_OVO is referring to as “the team”.