Skip to main content

Hello,

I'm an ex-SSE customer that was migrated to OVO in June 2023.
I had a new smart meter fitted on the 16th of December 2022 by SSE and since then I had an issues with the Economy 7 tariff.

Initially, all appliances connected to the off-peak rate circuit (port 5) were always ON instead of turning on and off during rate changes.

After contacting SSE support and later on OVO support multiple times, on the 17th of July 2023, OVO sent an engineer that supposedly fixed our issue but instead it changed to the opposite way:
All appliances connected to the off-peak rate circuit (port 5) are now always OFF during both peak and off-peak hours.

Our heating system consists of storage heaters which are all connected to this off-peak circuit so we are now effectively without heating.

We contacted the OVO support multiple times about this issue with no luck.
They sent multiple emergency and non-emergency engineers and none of them was able to fix our issue beside worsening it on the 17th of July.

By going through other posts on this forum, I came to the conclusion that our problem is probably due to a misconfiguration of our smart meter that could be fixed remotely by OVO, specifically the ECAUL and ALCS config via SMETS commands.

I tried to mention this possible fix and those commands multiple times during phone calls and chats with support but they don't seem to understand what I'm talking about or flat out ignore it.

 

Both yesterday and today they sent an emergency engineer that as aforementioned were unable to do anything about it and told us to ask for an OVO engineer.
I tried this but the earliest would be the 29th of January which is ridiculous as we would be without heating for 2 more months during winter.

I’m not sure what to do at this point. I also raised formal complaint through the webchat but that seems not to do anything.

 

The smart meter that we got fitted.

 

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

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 🙂

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings