OVO Smart Meter fitted- Off-peak circuit always OFF?

Ok so those symbols show the state (open or closed) of the peak and off-peak circuits 

On the base of the meter itself, unless there’s some wiring hiding, it looks like there’s only 2 cables in (grey) and 2 cables out (brown and blue). 

For an off- peak circuit arrangement, there should normally be a 5th connection (usually another brown cable) which feeds the other circuit

Sorry, that's my fault - the pictire was not a good angle. Hopefully this one is better. 

Actually, I can see another cable going into the isolator so there must be one hidden behind the other two 

You need to check if that open switch symbol

o’o

closes

o-o

when your off peak is supposed to switch in

CuriousFairy wrote:

Sorry, that's my fault - the pictire was not a good angle. Hopefully this one is better. 

 

Ah yes, there’s the other cable. 
I know it will be later on but if you can check that switch indicator, we can see what needs to be updated

Okay, i'll check that tonight and report back in the morning. Thank you very much

If you press button A on the meter, you should be able to see the reading on TOU Rate 2, which ought to be the offpeak register. If your heating isn’t working, the reading will not be as high as it would be if your heaters were charging up overnight. It wouldn’t be unusual to see the offpeak readings two or three times as big as the peak reading.

If you find that the bottom contactor is still open half an hour after your offpeak period started, it should be possible for OVO Support to put it right. You should try to persuade them to ask the smart team to send the ECAUL request to your meter to configure the ALCS calendar to match your Economy 7 plan timings.

Hey @CuriousFairy 

Sorry to hear about this, but I’m glad to see a couple of our volunteers have already stopped by with some really helpful advice already. Let us know if you’re still having issues.

If everything is as Firedog has mentioned, the Support Team should be able to help get this resolved. If you’re on live chat or whatsapp you can share one of the similar topics with them if they’re not sure:

I was just thinking about this one .. did you see the switch change @CuriousFairy ?

I'm so sorry. I typed a reply to this days ago but must not have posted it. 

The bottom contactor remains open all night. 

Sadly still struggling with this. No one i talk to seems to know what i am talking about. I submitted a complaint a week ago but have received no response to that either. Just need this sorted now. It's cold. 

I have sent an email today asking for help again and also included the link to the forum post mentioned im Abbys reply to refer to. 

Hey @CuriousFairy,

I’m really sorry that you haven’t heard from your case handler. I forwarded the thread onto them and asked them to pick this up with you so you should have a call/email from them today. 

They should have everything they need to make progress on this for you so keep us updated if you need any further support 🙂

Thank you. I did get an email and a voicemail on the 12th telling me that they have raised a case to reconfigure my meter and it would be done within 14 working days. With how cold it is in my part of Scotland right now i am very hopeful it will be soon. It's too cold to not be able to use the storage heaters and i'm spending a silly amount of money using 1 small panel electric heater to heat the whole of the ground floor of my home which barely takes the edge off and i have 4 young children. I will just be happy when its all sorted. Its been nearly 2 months of trying and it's only thanks to the help on this forum that i've managed to get anywhere at all with it. I am extremely grateful, thank you.

I’ll chase this up today ​@CuriousFairy 

To cut the long story short I had the same issue with SSE/OVO in 2022.

We have Underfloor Heat Storage and Hot-Water System on E7 with 5-Terminal RTS Meter (dedicated O/P Cable to the O/P CU).  In May 2022 SSE changed the RTS meter with SMETS2.  Only in Sep 2022 when we needed the heating system we noted that the system does not work.  Lots of visits by OVO engineers, they could not get the SMETS2 to connect to WAN as the meter is installed inside an Electrical Utility Room within the concrete underground carpark.  They also failed to get the off-peak power kicking in.  At the end the ONLY solution was to put the Old RTS Meter back. We had two years of trouble-free operation with the very old (but reliable) RTS meter.

The BBC4 radio frequency is expected to be switched off on 30 June 2025. Ofgem, the energy regulator, currently expects all RTS meters to be replaced with SMETS2 by this date. 

OVO RTS Team approached us last week again asking us to change to SMETS2. I understand based on the information from “Citizen Advice” & “Energy UK” that if we can’t get a WAN/MESH connection some suppliers may choose to provide a non-connected smart meter with pre-programmed switching times as a temporary solution.   This would be an acceptable solution to us as we are mainly interested in having our storage heating system working on O/P power.

Before we go ahead with this I would like to know if ALCS set-up (to switch the O/P on and off based on meter internal calendar) requires the SMETS2 to be accessed via WAN/MESH (wireless) after installation or the engineer can pre-programme this with the off-peak schedule manually without wireless connection?

I tried to get this information from OVO (used the chat, telephone line, email, etc.) with ZERO luck as it seems the issue is too technical for them and I cannot get access to the smart meter technical team.

I would appreciate it if someone here can help with this question.

Hey ​@Siberia 

I’ll see if I can get some advice on this internally & report back.

Hey ​@Siberia 

I’ve had a response from an expert:

The answer here is that where auxiliary load switching is required to replace RTS, OVO's field force will use either an Aclara SGM1416B 5 terminal meter or an L+G E470+L470 5 terminal meter. These meters are pre-programmed to switch by default at E7 times (specifically 00:00 to 07:00) so that in the event WAN connection cannot be established the meters will still engage the 5th terminal at the times specified. The engineer doesn't need to do anything on site, as long as one of these meters is used, they will have default switching times. Worth noting that smart meters work in UTC so whilst it will switch 00:00 to 07:00 now, when we move to BST that those times will effectively change by an hour. Also, the meters will have a randomised offset which can change the switch time by up to ten minutes (i.e. it might be set to switch at 00:00 but it could switch at 00:06, as an example)

​@Emmanuelle_OVO 

Thank you very much.

This is the most sensible answer I have got over the last few weeks.  I am aware of the UTC and randomised offset and fully okay with both.  The probabilty of WAN working here is low (even with WAN+MESH+Internal Aerial T2).  But, as I mentioned above this does not bother us as our main interest is to avoid the same issues we had in 2022 with smart meter.  As long as the new SMETS2 can swtich the dedicated O/P Cable on at around 00:00 and turn it of at around 07:00 we are okay.

To make sure I am not missing anything (last time we suffered a lot as it was a very cold winter and it took a couple of months to get the RTS meter back) - please note that the smart meter SSE/OVO installed for me on 3rd May 2022 (see photos attached) was a SMETS2 -  Aclara SGM1416B 5 terminal. On one of the photos you can see TOU1 and TOU2, latter is open.  It never closed, even during the off-peak hours.  

Is there any reason why OVO Smart Meter Specialists now believe that it will work this time?

I am hoping that the answer is simple e.g. “that in early 2022 these meters were not pre-programmed to switch by default at E7 times (specifically 00:00 to 07:00)”???

Once again thank you for your help.  I am sure lots of other consumers with RTS Meters have or will have the same question/issue.

​@Emmanuelle_OVO 

As it stands right now OVO RTS Team has booked an appointment for Monday 25th Nov morning to change the old RTS Meter with a new SMETS2. 

It would be very helpful and kind of you if I can have an answer to the above question today since if this solution is NOT going to work I need to cancel the appointment asap as OVO requires a reasonable notice for cancellation.  Thank you. 

Hey ​@Siberia 

I’ll ask internally for the same expert to take a look & I’ll report back 🙂

​@Emmanuelle_OVO 

It is much appreciated. I shall eagerly await your feedback.

For your SMETS Expert benefit - eraly this morning I managed to check one of the smart meters located close to my old RTS meter.  This is not an OVO meter but it is for sure Aclara SGM1416B 5 terminal.  From the LED lights on the communications hub I can clearly establish that this meter is working in “dumb” mode i.e. no WAN/MESH and no connection to DCC System (there is no aerial antena on this unit). 

I specifically noted the display at Off-Peak Time as well as the Peak Time.  The 1st image below is taken during the Off-Peak Time which shows both LC1 and LC2 (I assume means Load Current 1 and Load Current 2 - but this is just a guess).  I assume this means that both Peak and Off-Peak cables are live and providing power. I also noted that exactly at 07:00 hours the image changed to the 2nd image below showing only Switch “I” On and Swtich II off. 

Am I correct to assume that this indicates that this Aclara SGM1416B was pre-programmed to switch by default at E7 times (specifically 00:00 to 07:00)?  For sure the provider could not have sent ECAUL remotely cause there is no working WAN/MESH!

Thank you, 

Off-Peak Image taken at 06:55

Peak-Hour Image taken at 07:00

We’re told that OVO multi-rate meters intended for sites with known dodgy WAN connections are nowadays pre-configured for E7 as a default. This means with any luck that a new meter will have both its ToU matrix and its ALCS set to the appropriate E7 timings for the location. That seems to be the situation with the meter you looked at.

LC is Load Control; I think that LC1 is the internal 100A contactor, while LC2 is the little 2A switch which may be connected to an external contactor, but it doesn’t have to be. When you took the second photo, both switches were closed as you’d hoped.

Next time you’re poking around, press button A a bit more often to see the various displays. Unless there’s some local generation going on (e.g. from solar panels), the Export readings will be zero. The interesting readings would be ToU Rate 1 and 2, giving the state of the peak and offpeak registers. Total Active Import should be the sum of the ToU registers.

It’s worth checking, too, that ToU Rate 1 is in fact for peak usage; meters like this have been known to be fitted with the registers the wrong way round, with unknown but probably not happy consequences.

In any case, it looks as if you’re good to go ahead with getting your meter exchanged. Then you can start wondering about how to get you all on to the WAN. 

​@Firedog 

Thank you for clarifying LC1 and LC2.  There is no external contactor outside or next to the meter.  I have to just assume in this mode we get both the Peak (Normal) Power as well as the Off-Peak Power (which feeds the Off-Peak CU in my apartment).  For sure exactly at 07:00 I heard a click and display changed (good news). 

FYI - this meter was also installed at the same time I originally had a go at smart meter (May 2022).  I know that this apartment also lost its Storage Heating System functionality.  I guess perhaps over the last two years the supplier has sorted the meter out for them as they have heating system working.

To be honest I was expecting to see the display to look like this during the Off-Peak Time (i.e. both switches closed);

I o-o

II o-o

So, I was a bit surprised that it looked like the image above (I o-o LC1 & LC2).  I did quickly checked two more Aclara SGM1416B, they were showing the same (I o-o LC1 & LC2). 

My main concern is that OVO will install an Aclara SGM1416B for us - at midnight we find out it is NOT pre-programmed correctly, and we lose both Heating and Hot-Water :-(  Since there is no WAN then there is no quick solution, we will potentially suffer for days/weeks (I note from reading lots of pages of information in this forum that even with working WAN it has, in some cases, taken OVO weeks and months to send ECAUL to correctly set ALCS).

Thank you.

I believe this Terminal Arrangements for Aclara SGM1416-B shows both Meter internal 100A contactors (Peak and Off-Peak), I guess LC1 and LC2 are references to these. 

Hey ​@Siberia 

Can you please private message me your OVO account number, name & address.

I’ve found someone who can look into this for you 😊

​@Emmanuelle_OVO 

Thank you - private message was sent a few minutes ago.

Sorry to jump back into this thread. This has been the most helpful place for advice since my issues began! 

I did get my meter reconfigured to enable E7 a few days ago and at 23:30pm the off peak activates and at the same time the neon light on the Dimplex Quantum off peak switch now lights up. However 30 minutes later at midnight the neon light on the switch turns off and the storage heater hasn't charged at all yet. I've checked and double checked that the heaters settings are all correct. I am just wondering if this is a meter issue or something i need to contact an electrician to look at the heater for? My understanding was that the off peak switch next to the heater lights up when there is off peak energy available to use so it shouldn't be switching off until 7.30am in the morning, not at midnight?