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

It is now 6 weeks since my RDS meter was replaced and my contract changed from THTC to Economy 10. As advised by various folk on the forum, I have waited the industry ‘standard’ 6 weeks for the meter to be fully functional.

The meter and the IHD are performing as expected - IHD showing Economy 10 tariff is in force, correct meter readings being sent to my account - but off peak power is still being delivered at Economy 7 times.

I contacted OVO’s chat line today. The operator’s action was to contact the meter team to have my contract amended. I queried that because I do not want the contract changed, I just want an Economy 10 service. She replied, ‘ I can understand that however to be able to fix this we need to remove the contract and resubmit it then your off peak times will be correct’; and confirmed the times would change to Economy 10. She said it would take 5 days.

Does that make sense to anyone? 

That’s exactly what I have had since the 8th of July,all bills have been estimated and totally at peak rate dnd they are coming to put an old type meter back in on the 25th of November,panorama was a interesting watch last night.

@Codeye Sorry to hear, sounds like you are worse off than me. At least my meter is sending off peak and peak readings to my account but I think they are based on Economy 7 times. Best of luck sorting it out. I started this thread more than a month ago and I still have to get a clear picture of what the process should be.

I take readings from my IHD which is set to Economy 10 tariff. I can see the rates changing in accordance with Economy 10 times. When I eventually get a bill I will try and reconcile with the actual meter readings being sent to my account.

@Firedog writes: Configuring the timings of the auxiliary load control switch that turns power to the dedicated offpeak circuit on and off is a separate process. I just don’t know whether it’s possible to do this off site.

That is helpful. On taking a closer look, I can just about reconcile the £ amounts displayed in my IHD with the meter readings being sent to my account, suggesting all recorded readings are in accordance with Economy10. (Note that the IHD is changing the £ rate in line with Economy10 times.)

Off Peak power is being delivered at Economy7 times. My previous post earlier today records that the online chat advised that meter team need to ‘change my contract’ to deliver off peak power at Economy10 times. I am not confident that will fix it.

I’m afraid you took my words out of context. Configuring the ALCS is done remotely, as far as I’m aware. This requires that the meter is in contact with the mothership, so it isn’t possible to change the configuration in a no-WAN situation. ‘Off-site’ here meant ‘somewhere other than where the meter is to be installed’.
  

There is of course no need to change your contract, assuming that your plan clearly shows that it’s an Economy 10 tariff. What has to change is the ALCS configuration, and Support should be able to get that done, if they can’t actually do it themselves (which I’ve occasionally heard that they can, to my horror). 

I’d suggest that you watch the meter like a hawk at the time when the tariff changes. It should happen a few minutes after the advertised times, so that delay - how many minutes - is what you want to find out. Then, when you ask (again!) for the ECAUL request to be sent to configure your ALCS, ask if it’s possible to change the offpeak times to a couple of minutes after the times you noted and the peak times to a couple of minutes before.

I’ve just skimmed through the whole of this thread, but I couldn’t see anywhere what offpeak times you think you should be getting. They vary a lot from place to place, so I can’t just look them up without knowing where you live.  I may have asked before, but I couldn’t spot it in my lightning review - if you have told me and I forgot, sorry!

One common set of timings is:

• 4:30am - 7:30am, 1:30pm - 4:30pm, 8:30pm - 12:30am (GMT) 
  (these are for the Northern Scotland region, otherwise referred to as Scottish Hydro, region 17 or P depending on where you look)

For example, if you note that the tariff changes at 13:35, your meter has a built-in delay of 5 minutes. You could ask for the ALCS to be set to switch at:

• 4:40am - 7:30am, 1:40pm - 4:30pm, 8:40pm - 12:30am (GMT)

OK, you’d lose a few minutes of available offpeak time on the switched circuit, but you’d be more certain that you won’t be using power-hungry appliances at peak rates by mistake. You’ll be careful, of course, not to switch the oven on before 8:35pm if you’re penny-pinching.

Please come back and tell us whether you were able to get this done.

Thank you ​@Firedog.

I am in region 17 and those are my off peak times according to my IHD. I presume the IHD gets them from the meter. When I calculate my likely bill using my tariff and the meter readings on my on-line account (it has been receiving readings since 5th October) I can just about reconcile the figure with what the IHD says. So all of that side seems OK.

I will wait the 5 days to see if the contract amendment/re-submittal prompts the ECAUL request. The operator I chatted to seemed convinced her action would do the trick. I don’t want to push the issue yet because the last time I did that an operator virtually hung up on the chat.

The relevant extract from my last chat is below.

• 2 Nov 2024 3:33:06 PM - Agent: Hi there, my name is Victoria. Thank you so much for contacting us on webchat. Just so you know, it may take a little while for me to answer your queries, however I will always respond. How can I help you today?
• 12 Nov 2024 3:35:10 PM - Customer: A smart meter was installed on 1st October. it was a THTC replacement and I signed up for economy 10. The off peak service is being provided overnight at Economy 7 times only.
• 12 Nov 2024 3:36:05 PM - Agent: Thank you for providing me with this information, please allow me a moment to look into this for you
• 12 Nov 2024 3:39:49 PM - Agent: Thank you for your patience there, what I am doing right now is getting this raised to the meter team so they can amend your contract and have you on the correct times for your off peak timings
• 12 Nov 2024 3:42:10 PM - Customer: I don't need the contract amended. I need the Economy10 service we agreed to.
• 12 Nov 2024 3:43:27 PM - Agent: I can understand that however to be able to fix this we need to remove the contract and resubmit it then your off peak times will be correct
• 12 Nov 2024 3:44:04 PM - Customer: as per Economy10?
• 12 Nov 2024 3:44:26 PM - Agent: yes thats correct
• 12 Nov 2024 3:45:04 PM - Customer: OK, do you have a timescale for this, please?
• 12 Nov 2024 3:46:14 PM - Agent: I have got this raised now and the time frame for this is within 5 days. Your case number is 25843066

That’s very interesting, and it may well be correct that this is the way it’s done. I wonder. 

Since you now have a case no., you can quote it each time you have to contact Support. This should avoid the sort of situation we saw yesterday - the customer is quoting from a conversation with support: “I have just called to confirm your appointment for 6.30 today and been told there is no details of my call or appointment”. 

Hi - new to the forum :)

We live in sunny perthshire and had a ‘smart’ meter fitted just over 6 weeks ago.

We were very lucky and it was installed by an experienced operator detached from ‘down south’.

Our meter seemed to be working ok right from the start,we did have a small problem with the IHD but managed to sort that.

Our only problem was that we appeared to be on economy 7 ‘times’ but fortunately my OH had seen online about the 6 week delay so we were fairly relaxed about that.

Anyway she contacted OVO recently to ask about why we were not on e10 ‘times’,the Lady she spoke to said she would contact somebody about it (he was out of the office),but he must have picked up the message anyway as the ‘Heater signal light’ lit up whilst she was still on the phone with the OVO Lady :)

So I guess it might at least partly depend on who you speak to at OVO,as I said earlier we were very lucky with our meter installer but some of our neighbours have had problems probably caused by inexperience/lack of skills.

Hey, thanks for letting us know ​@maxaret !

I’ll make sure this gets fed back to the teams - no doubt there’s a few who’ll be happy to hear this. :)

But yeah, reconfiguring the Meter can be a fairly quick task if everything is working correctly - in some cases it’s a simple matter of a few mouse clicks.

For ​@Blastoise186 and ​@Firedog 

Good news from ​@maxaret above but not so good  news from me (also in sunny Perthshire).

(Can you tell me the dates when your meter was installed ​@maxaret and when the Economy 10 off peak started, please?)

To recap, I have moved from THTC to Economy 10 and my meter was installed on 1st October. Off peak power is still being supplied at Economy 7 times. My online chat last week (see above) prompted the operator to resubmit my contract to correct the off peak times. I was told that the timescale for this request was up to 5 days.

5 days later my off peak supply times have not changed. I was told today that last week’s request was for a change to my ‘profile class’ and it would take up to 15 working days; that will  take us up to 3rd December. You can read the relevant extract from the chat below.

Because I have been given so much misleading/conflicting information from OVO, I also tried phoning today. I was told that nothing could be done to speed things up.

If anyone from OVO is monitoring this, can someone explain why my installation is taking so long and convince me the current action will resolve the problem?

I will now switch on my storage heaters and let them charge overnight at the 24 hour rate (it might be sunny Perthshire but it is freezing). Fortunately affordability is not a problem for us, and I can use other heating in the evening when the storage heaters are discharged. That might not be the case for other customers who were foolish enough to take OVO’s advice and apply for meter replacement as early as possible.

• 19 Nov 2024 12:44:08 PM - Customer: I would like an update on case number 25843066, please.
• 19 Nov 2024 12:45:26 PM - Agent: No worries. Bear with me a moment, please
• 19 Nov 2024 12:50:05 PM - Agent: Hi  thanks for your patience. The case is currently being worked on. The timeframe for this update is 15 working days. So, this should've been updated within the timeframe. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
• 19 Nov 2024 12:50:41 PM - Customer: I was told during last week's chat the timeframe was 5 days.
• 19 Nov 2024 12:52:06 PM - Agent: I'm sorry about that. The agent maybe referring to when the case maybe worked on
• 19 Nov 2024 12:52:53 PM - Agent: The case is currently worked on, but it takes up 15 working days for it to be updated
• 19 Nov 2024 12:54:20 PM - Customer: One last thing, can you tell me, please, exactly what action is requested in the case documentation.
• 19 Nov 2024 12:56:05 PM - Agent: Your off peak time is on economy 7, instead of 10, your profile class needed to be changed/amended correctly
• 19 Nov 2024 12:56:32 PM - Customer: Thank you.
• 19 Nov 2024 12:56:53 PM - Agent: No worries. Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Does anyone else find it annoying when a help desk operator says, ‘no worries’?!