Should I fix in? & do I have to get a smart meter if so?

Hi, For any Smart Meter sceptics, I have been with OVO for 6 years, in the early days I was encouraged many times to have a new meter fitted but refused due to their issues back then, "it was all over the news", in mid 2021 I had a ASHP fitted and was still happy taking meter readings and sending them in manually to OVO.

In early 2024 OVO in conjunction with Valiant my hand was forced and I had a new meter fitted to take advantage of the Air Source+ tariff of "0.15pkwh" instead of 0.226p.

I have never had any issues with with the meter and I wouldn't revert back.

Just a tip, if you plan to have a new meter fitted, ask if you can have a breaker fitted between the smart meter and fuse board, it saves cutting the tamper seals and stops the meter from making a high pitched squeal when disconnecting from the grid, 

my seals were removed when my solar panels were installed and also needed the new meter as to export my SEG @12p kWh.

Hey ​@johnr64 

Thanks for sharing your experience since having smart meters fitted, that’s a really helpful insight!

​@Naz84 I hope the advice of our community members has been helpful, and gives you a little more information to think about,

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Hello,

i decided not to renew my 1 Year Fixed Loyalty as the Simpler Energy tariff was cheaper and then suddenly i got an email telling me that my DD will now go from £88 to £127 from next month in spite of having nearly 5 times that as contingency – is this normal or is this because I did not select a tariff?

Thanks

What are the unit and standing charges on your present Fixed tariff?  What are the Future Annual Consumption predictions as shown on your “My Plan” page? This should allow you to do a cost breakdown for both your present Fixed Tariff and the Simpler Energy Tariff. It will look something like this for each of them.

To work out how OVO decides on your Direct Debit, you need to do a few more things. First, you need to subtract any credit (or add any debit values) from the Totals. Dividing this by 12 would give a simple estimate for your Direct Debit.

HOWEVER, OVO insist that, if you are going to pay via DD that you ALWAYS have a credit equal to the size of your monthly DD in your account. So you need to add that simple estimate value to the Totals and then divide that sum by 12 to fulfil that condition. So in my case above, a simple estimate would give £100.72. Adding this to my total gives £1309.29. Dividing this by 12 would give me a DD of £109.11 per month. I have assumed that I have no credit or debit on my account.

How close is the £127 per month when you work it out in this way? If it is way off, you should contact OVO. (I ALWAYS use the Messenger function on OVO’s Facebook page whenever I need to make contact)

OVO review our Direct Debit payments every three months.

Thanks for that - calculator out at the weekend then!

How do the current Simpler Energy rates and SC compare with your previous fix?

My current fix ends on the 27th of this month and I too am going to simpler energy rather than a new fix.

However my calculations for my current 1-year fixed loyalt that is ending give a DD of £92 a month.

A new 1-year fixed loyalty would be £120 a month.

The Simpler Energy will be £108 a month.

Here’s an extract from my comparison spreadsheet for the basic DD amounts without considering any credit held:

So although the current Simpler Energy is £12 cheaper than a new fix it’s still £16 dearer than my current fix and so my DD will need to go up.
(I’ve already increased my DD myself before OVO stick their oar in).