New smart meter to Replace old meters wiring configuration

Hi all,

Just looking for some clarification here on a situation I can’t seem to find elsewhere on the forum.

I’m in a small 1990’s “four-plex” in Inverness that is full electric and currently runs on THTC with two storage heaters, auxiliary panel heaters and immersion hot water. I’m still in a dilemma over whether to take all the electric heating out and go for a gas combi system (there is gas on the street but not to my premises). However my main question is if I decide to keep the electric.

I have my two meters in a external meter box, which feed my consumer units and RTS under the stairs in the middle of the house. Obviously with the imminent switch-off, I am needing to upgrade to a smart meter. 

As I understand it, the smart meter will now take on the job of the RTS, I presume that will need to be located outside to connect to the incoming cable and supply the two sets of existing tails currently leaving my two meters.

I have three consumer units inside, one for the standard meter (sockets, cooker, lights etc.), one for 24HR heating (panel heaters, water heater boost) and one for off-peak storage and hot water. The cable from the standard meter feeds the standard consumer unit, easy. The cable from the “heating meter” goes into two connector blocks, with the 24HR board fed direct from these connectors, but with the live for the off-peak going through the RTS and then into the consumer unit, therefore powering up my off-peak only during the set THTC times.

Since the smart meter will now be doing the switching, I imagine a new cable would need to be run from the smart meter back to the off-peak consumer unit, so they are only energised on the set times (of whatever tariff I go onto, possibly Smart Economy 9?). I am wondering whether this cable would be done by the smart meter engineer or would it be my domain?

I am wondering though, to avoid all this, since I have upgraded to one Dimplex Quantum and plan to upgrade the other, these can operate on a single supply with the off-peak times programmed in. I am aware off the hot water, and would look to install a timer on that as well. Could I still have a smart meter, with Economy 9, but not require a switched circuit?

TLDR- Could the internal RTS just be bypassed, have the two tails coming from the smart meter outside to feed the 3 consumer units permanently live and I sort out my equipment to only charge on the off-peak times given by OVO?

Sorry if the above is too much detail or confusing, I have attached a picture of the wiring below the RTS and consumer unit, and the meter box outside. Thanks for any advice or assistance!

Hi ​@Cal550 ,

Long story short is that the new Smart Meter would go in the same place as the existing meters and generally wired up more or less the same way as before. That’s the limits of the job - it wouldn’t generally do re-wiring to remove the Peak/Off-Peak stuff outright - you’d need your own electrician for that.

The Smart Meter would - by itself - run the entire switching process. However, you may need to wait a bit longer due to your split setup that we’ve seen a few times recently.

Bear with us - we’ll dig the Forum for resources.

Hey ​@Cal550,

Welcome to the community 😃

Great first question with plenty of information and photo’s to give us plenty of information to work with. ​@Blastoise186 has done a great job of providing answering so far. It should be a case of replacing the multiple meters and leaving the single meter in place. The single meter should be able to handle the changing of the peak/off peak rates. 

​Let us know if you have any more questions and we’ll find answers for you! 

We’ve seen a number of cases in the forum where the meter to be exchanged and the RTS unit are in different places. This can prove to be problematic, because the meter engineer isn’t necessarily trained or equipped to carry out any essential work beyond the meter backboard. Photos of the installation site are always helpful, so if your meter exchange hasn’t yet been booked, do it via one of Support’s chat options so you can upload photos to be attached to your account. If it has been booked, you can still contact Support and ask them to attach your photos for the smart meter people to see.