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My smart meter keeps losing connection - Do I need this resolved to access Charge Anytime plan?

  • 11 January 2022
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Over the past months my OVO account says my smart meter isn’t reporting. Most recently it stopped from the 17th Dec until today. (my account shows it connected today. Interestingly today I was accessing it and taking photos).

 

It has lost and regained multiple times now!. I would like to be able to use ovo drive anytime tariff for my electric car but I need it to work reliably before I switch. The fixed rate is more than my current tariff and if I move and can’t add the any time I will be out of pocket badly! 

My WAN and HAN are flashing. I also have terrible mobile signal in the area. But I’m on EE not O2.

What are my options for getting the connection to work reliably? 

Can I get a new meter installed with an antenna?

 

 

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Best answer by Jess_OVO 12 January 2022, 16:39

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I also have a flashing light on the Landis Gry e470 meter

Blastoise186
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Hey there @Anthony H !

Thanks for asking this one, I bet it’s a bit of a headache you’ve got there! By the looks of things, your current meter was originally installed by British Gas in 2018 and is a SMETS1 Landis+Gyr E470, does that sound right?

I can definitely understand why you’d want to get things working properly first and it makes total sense to me. Resolving poor signal issues for a SMETS1 meter like that is extremely difficult to do, so I’m thinking that the best fix might be a Meter Exchange to get you onto SMETS2, possibly with an SKU2 Cellular + Mesh Comms Hub and either a T1 or T2 Aerial running on the Telefonica WAN. These are more powerful than the regular aerials in an SKU1 Cellular Comms Hub and would stand a better chance of getting a usable signal.

If you’re up north though, the Long-Range Radio based Arqiva WAN completely bypasses all mobile phone networks and uses a different system.

If you’re also seeing flashing lights on that Trilliant comms hub next to the meter, this could indicate a possible fault which is worth investigating further.

Personally, I’d definitely recommend taking this up with the Support Team to discuss your options. They may want to attempt to diagnose and fix your existing meter first and it’s worth doing this with them just in case you get lucky. If the problem still can’t be solved and/or things get worse though, then other options can be explored - and a Meter Exchange to SMETS2 is one possible option on the table.

I can’t make any promises myself as I’m only a forum volunteer, but if you flag these issues up with OVO, it will be looked into.

Hope this helps you out. We’re here if you get stuck.

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Thank you for taking the time to read through. The house was built in 2018 and I've been told British gas installed the site. So I think you're right.

I've emailed the support team with my photos and status light descriptions as you recommend.

I just hope that it reconnecting today just as I message them about it doesn't mean they close off the case :)

 

 

Blastoise186
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No worries, you’re welcome. :)

And yeah, if BG created the supply, I’m not surprised that they installed those meters. I will not lie when I tell you that I consider the L+G E470 and G360/G470 to be horrible meters, across all SMETS1 and SMETS2 variants. I’d much rather have Aclara and Flonidan any day, which is what I’ve got (except not the Flonidan side, as I don’t have gas at my flat)!

You don’t need to worry about the Support Team not believing you either, the logs from both your meters and the comms hub alone will hold enough evidence of comms issues, even without looking through the server logs on OVO’s side… XD

The fact you’ve had repeated issues will be factored in, even if it’s working today that might just be a sudden chirp. They’ll take a look for you either way.

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Jess_OVO
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Great to see our resident Landis + Gyr trouble-shooter, @Blastoise186 offering some great advice on what might be behind these intermittent communication issues you’ve been having, @Anthony H.

 

As you mention already contacting the Support Team, they’ll advise on the next best steps and may advise you to carry out a Smart Meter Health Check to help diagnose the issue. Just to manage expectations slightly here, as intermittent signal issues are more often caused by the network in your area rather than the meter itself, we wouldn’t be able to guarantee a S2 meter replacement would get this sorted. We’d usually advise monitoring the communications to see whether they recover without the need for further intervention (as may be the case now you’ve noticed we’ve received some recent readings).

 

This shouldn’t prevent you from access the OVO Drive Anytime plan however. As the exclusive charging rate is applied to the amount used to charge you car, this is calculated based on the information measured by your smart charger rather than the smart meter.  You’ll just need to make sure that you’ve got the an Indra Smart Pro charger installed and meet the other OVO Drive Anytime eligibility requirements.

 

Hope this helps you decide on the best EV plan for you - Keep us posted with your decision! :red_car:

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The form I filled in said they would get back to me in 45 working days. That’s a really long time!

do you have anything you can share about that timing?

Blastoise186
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That sounds about right to me. 45 days is the maximum target resolution time for more technical or in-depth cases that need more time or resources to resolve than can be offered through the main Support Team. It’s quite common for any cases that go through to the Tech Team or Billing Team for example.

However, it’s still within the eight week timeout before you can go to the Energy Ombudsman and is pretty common in the industry. It is also possible you might get a response faster than that. Most people do. :)

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Jess_OVO
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The form I filled in said they would get back to me in 45 working days. That’s a really long time!

do you have anything you can share about that timing?

 

Appreciate that the timeframe for investigating smart meter issues can seem long, @Anthony H. As I mentioned above this does allow us to monitor any communication issues which may resolve themselves without needing further action.

 

That said you shouldn’t need to wait the full 45 days in order to access the OVO Drive Anytime plan - As the communication of the smart charger works on Wifi rather than the smart meter network, we can still offer those exclusive charging rates even if your smart meter connection isn’t constant at the moment.

 

Have you got an Indra Smart Pro charger already installed?

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I was told by the customer experience team that my meter hasn’t been enrolled and adopted yet. But I still don’t understand my usage in my account if this is true. Why do I see random days of two decimal points of accuracy?

 

Blastoise186
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Without access to your account, I can’t say for sure. If you check your meter reading history using the OVO Energy app though, it should tell you the sources of those meter readings.

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So if I had a smart meter making daily readings, I would see a long list of readings there? Does the below screenshot prove it hasn’t been enrolled and adopted by the DCC?

what is the deadline set by Ofgen or the DCC for all meters to be adopted?

 

Blastoise186
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Ah yes, I see. If any of those were from your smart meter, you’d see Smart as the type. Clearly yours aren’t submitting automatically right now.

From my understanding, the aim to get all S1 meters migrated is targeted at around December 2022 but it could still change. Keep an eye out for any updates as the advice we give out does get updated as we learn more.

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Jess_OVO
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Great advice there from, @Blastoise186 - doesn’t look like we’ve received any automatic smart meter readings from your meter yet, @Anthony H.

 

In case you hadn’t spotted it, we’ve got a full guide to the SMETS1 enrolment process, including the anticipated time frames for each meter type to be upgraded, over here:

 

 

Hope this helps. :slight_smile:

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