My hot water and storage heaters work on Economy 7 so the meter should switch the electric supply on around midnight and switch them off around 7am. It worked perfectly until I had a new smart meter fitted in March this year. Ovo tell me it the new smart meter is programmed correctly on Economy 7. However when I look at the hourly graphs I can see that it switches on at 4,30am for 3 hours, 2.30 pm for 3 hours and then 8.30pm for 3 hours. None of this is overnight when my off-peak rates apply.
Hopefully these pictures are what you need - thanks
Thank you so much for going to all that trouble - it makes it so much easier to see what’s going on.
The meter you’ve had fitted is the same as my own (if anyone asks you, tell them it’s an Aclara SGM 1416B). The EDMI box on top of the meter is the Communications Hub, hoping to connect to the Smart Meter Wide Area Network (SMWAN or just WAN for short) vis Long-Range Radio (LRR).
The display screen tells us a lot:
I should have asked you to note the exact time when you took the picture, because:
The Active Tariff Price, 17.690 p/kWh, is the Offpeak unit rate 16.48 p/kWh shown on your Plan page + 5% VAT, so usage at the moment the photo was taken was being recorded on the offpeak register;
The little labels in the bottom right-hand corner tell us that both Load Control switches (LC1 LC2) inside the meter were closed at the time. This means the switched circuit (called OFFPEAK by whoever labelled the Consumer Unit shown in your second picture) was live and heaters may have been on.
That is exactly as it should be for the duration of your offpeak periods. Now you’ll have to watch the meter for a few minutes at the start of what appears to be one of your offpeak periods. I can’t tell whether it’s supposed to be Economy 9 or Economy 10 or indeed something else, so your observations will have to pin it down. The offpeak periods (GMT) might be:
… but I can’t be sure from the info I’ve found. The timings will be an hour later during summertime. Sadly, none of the start or end times coincide!
You said you were looking for the Economy 7 hours so perhaps that’s the tariff you were supposed to be on. As far as I can tell, they’re the same in the whole Northern Powergrid area, 00:00 - 07:00 GMT and an hour later in BST. It should be a simple matter to tell whether either of your timetables match them. At 08:00 precisely, the meter display should be just as in the picture above if Economy 7 is in force, and it should change within the next 15-20 minutes. If it’s not as above, then you’re not on Economy 7.
Last - for now - we haven’t mentioned the IHD. Did the meter engineer leave one with you and explain how it works (he should have done!)? If you got one and it’s working, it could save a lot of meter-watching; it will show traffic-light red when a heater fires up, it should show the active tariff price at any time, and it may even show a countdown to the next tariff change.
Great news - we’ve got everything sorted with your meter. The issue was that, following the installation, the meter has been rate switching at the Economy 7 times but load switching (storage heaters and immersion) at Economy 10 times.
We are on simpler energy 2 rate. We are in NE England. Gateshead
That would be this one, perhaps:
How this differs from the other ‘restricted’ tariffs is a mystery to me. Economy 10 has the highest prices, Economy 7 the lowest, which is not surprising bearing in mind that it must cost the supplier more to offer 10 hours offpeak than 7. This is a variable tariff, so it’s due to increase significantly from 1 July. You can see all of OVO’s tariffs on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy.
If you were expecting an Economy 7 arrangement, where space- and water heaters charge up overnight, then your switched circuit powering this equipment is on at the wrong times. If you’re being billed at the offpeak rate for 7 hours overnight and the full peak rate for the other 17 hours, you’re being grossly overcharged. So we have to find out if this is the situation you’re in, before we can suggest how to put it right.
First, could we please see some photos of your installation? Ideally:
A close-up of the meter itself (with the display lit up by touching a button if necessary) clear enough to be able to read the display and the markings on the meter itself;
A view of the whole backboard so we can see the main supply cable coming in from outside, and all the cables to and from the meter itself;
If it’s not clear from the previous photo, a close-up of the meter exchange label - the card left by the engineer giving the numbers and readings of both the old and new meters (assuming he did leave one, as he’s supposed to do);
A view of each consumer unit (fuse box) clear enough to be able to read any labels the electrician may have left to say which breaker is which.
Once we know what sort of meter you’ve got, we can say how to see what times you’re being charged at peak and offpeak rates, and what times your switched circuit is being energized. The times should be the same, of course, but it sounds as if they’re probably not.
Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |
We are on simpler energy 2 rate. We are in NE England. Gateshead
That would be this one, perhaps:
How this differs from the other ‘restricted’ tariffs is a mystery to me. Economy 10 has the highest prices, Economy 7 the lowest, which is not surprising bearing in mind that it must cost the supplier more to offer 10 hours offpeak than 7. This is a variable tariff, so it’s due to increase significantly from 1 July. You can see all of OVO’s tariffs on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy.
If you were expecting an Economy 7 arrangement, where space- and water heaters charge up overnight, then your switched circuit powering this equipment is on at the wrong times. If you’re being billed at the offpeak rate for 7 hours overnight and the full peak rate for the other 17 hours, you’re being grossly overcharged. So we have to find out if this is the situation you’re in, before we can suggest how to put it right.
First, could we please see some photos of your installation? Ideally:
A close-up of the meter itself (with the display lit up by touching a button if necessary) clear enough to be able to read the display and the markings on the meter itself;
A view of the whole backboard so we can see the main supply cable coming in from outside, and all the cables to and from the meter itself;
If it’s not clear from the previous photo, a close-up of the meter exchange label - the card left by the engineer giving the numbers and readings of both the old and new meters (assuming he did leave one, as he’s supposed to do);
A view of each consumer unit (fuse box) clear enough to be able to read any labels the electrician may have left to say which breaker is which.
Once we know what sort of meter you’ve got, we can say how to see what times you’re being charged at peak and offpeak rates, and what times your switched circuit is being energized. The times should be the same, of course, but it sounds as if they’re probably not.
Thanks - hopefully these pictures are what you need.
