Smart Meter Installation

The In-Home Display (IHD) is probably not much use at the moment; in particular, any costs it shows depend on the right tariff prices having been sent to your meter. This is just one of the many tasks that have to be undertaken by the hard-pressed metering teams, which is why it could be six weeks until everything is in place.

The figures your IHD shows are only for guidance; real costs will eventually be shown on your online account. However, you’re right to be wary of your apparent high usage. Spotting any problem will take some detective work. You have to be sure that (a) your meter changes from recording peak usage to offpeak at the right times according to your tariff, and (b) that the meter’s Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS) is turning on power to your heating equipment at the same time. 

If we’re to help you with this, we’ll need to see:

• Your location (the first part of the postcode is usually enough);
• The name of the tariff you’re on, along with the peak/offpeak timings. This should have been included in the confirmation you had about the tariff change following the meter exchange;
• A close-up photo of your new meter, clear enough for its display and all the markings on it to be legible*. It usually helps to touch one of the buttons to light up the display before taking a picture. Please note the exact time the photo was taken and put it in the caption when you upload the image;
• An overview of the backboard the meter’s mounted on, so we can see all the cables running to and from the meter;
• Photos of the Consumer Units (CUs) - the ‘fuse boxes’ containing lots of circuit breakers. Prop the lids open and make sure any labels next to the breakers are legible. There may only be one CU for everything.

Let’s hope I remembered everything …
  

*   If you’re concerned about privacy, the only personally-identifiable information (PII) on the meter itself is its serial number (MSN). It’s enough just to obscure the last four characters before posting.

As well as the above, it may be helpful to provide your recent usage in kWh both before and after the install (instead of in £) - you can see that on the meter, or your Ovo account or on the IHD.

Thank you so much for the replies so far. I'm gathering up all the information and images requested and should have them to you by the end of today. Thanks again!

Good evening

Thank you again for your replies. As requested here are the details:

My postcode starts with CH2

The tariff I currently use with Ovo Energy is Simpler Energy - Economy 7. The off peak timings appear to be 00:30 to 07:30 daily

I have attached a Google link to the photograph of the new smart meter and also the backboard as requested (had to send a link as photo was too large to upload onto here so hopefully it can be accessed: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K2jUzBwtTQWojqoLYM1VoNw0YMzLAIR_/view?usp=sharing

I have also attached a copy of last year’s electrcity use chart from my Ovo Energy online account.  Please see below.

Having checked my account, it seems that some of the data is being uploaded already reflected in the balance of my account (currently in credit to at over £600). I doubt this will be the case for very long due to the way in which the electricity use seems to have surged after having the meter installed!

For example here is my use for January since having the meter installed: 

Please note that due to there being an omission of recognising my home as using the RTS system, the night storage heaters have been off since the RTS signal was switched off. However, the electricity use for the 6th and 7th January seems excessive compared to last year even with them on!

Thanks again for your help and advice!

There are other experts on here who can give you more advice, but one thing to consider is apart from having the meter installed, has anything else changed in the past 4 days? Are you sure the heaters are off all the time?

It does look like a big jump, but last January you used about 480kWh for the month (15kWh per day), and so far in Jan it looks like you’ve used about 110kWh, which is also 15 kWh per day. 

Obviously if your usage stays at 30 kWh per day you’ll be well above last year, but I’m wondering if there’s some variation through the week which just happened to coincide with the installation.

If you click on each day, you should be able to see a breakdown of the half hourly readings so you can see if it’s consistently high usage, or if there are spikes at certain times….

Here’s the photo so others trying to help don’t have to venture into the Googlesphere:
  

You have a nice new Aclara SGM 1416-B five-port meter that should have no difficulty handling a simple E7 tariff like yours. The red cable labelled L|S is the one that feeds your heating equipment overnight.

Sadly, the detective work you have to do has to take place either after midnight or around 07:30 in the morning, at the meter itself. You might want to do a practice run at a more civilized time:

1. Press button B. This gives access to a different set of menus from the ones you might have seen by pressing button A. These menus are configurable by the supplier or meter owner, so I can’t say just what to press when. 
   You may see the display text change to Credit Mode. If it does, you’re on the right track. On my own Aclara SGM 1416-B, repeated presses of orange button B eventually reveal a screen headed Active TOU Number, giving the number of the active tariff register. This will change from 1 to 2 and back as the tariff changes.
2. Another indicator is in the bottom right-hand corner of the display, two little icons labelled (on my own meter) ı and ıı. The upper one shows the state of the internal contactor for the constant (always-on) circuit. The lower one is for the switched-circuit contactors. 
    

   

   The upper one (ı) should always be closed unless the power has been cut. The lower one should be open during peak hours. During offpeak hours, it will not show open. What it does show depends a bit on how the internal switches are configured; on my meter, when offpeak kicks in, I see  LC1 LC2  indicating that both the 100A contactor for the storage heaters and immersion heater and the 2A switch for a (non-existent) external contactor are closed. If your meter were properly configured, you would see the Active TOU Number change at the same instant as the load control switch changes. This should happen a few minutes after 00:30 (peak > offpeak) and with the same delay after 07:30 (offpeak > peak). 
3. Once you’ve worked out how to see the active tariff rate register (it should be 1 for peak and 2 for offpeak, BTW), and to see whether the load control switch is open or closed, it’s time to grab a torch and a flask of coffee and camp out by your meter from just before 07:30 until you’ve spotted the change, potentially up to 30 minutes later. You might want to take timed before and after photos of the meter display showing the Active TOU Number - they would be compelling evidence for the techs if they illustrate that all isn’t as it should be.

I’ll revert later to comment on your usage figures.

With reference to my long earlier post, on re-reading it I wondered whether I should perhaps have explained why this investigation is necessary. 

The problem you describe is not an uncommon one, and with any luck it’s quite simple to remedy:

• A new smart meter is installed, ostensibly to manage a Time of Use tariff, e.g.  Economy 7 (E7);
• After installation, the heating equipment (night-storage and water heaters) that is supposed to use offpeak electricity isn’t working as intended,
  and/or
• Usage which ought to be at offpeak rates is being billed at the peak rate.  

There are two separate configuration patterns that govern the meter’s peak/offpeak behaviour: the Tariff Switching Table and the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS) Calendar. 

• The Tariff Switching Table specifies when the meter should stop recording usage on one register and start recording it on another. With E7, there are only two registers: peak and offpeak. This timetable should match the timings notified to you in the tariff details.
• The ALCS Calendar specifies the times when the offpeak switched circuit is energized. [It’s called a calendar because it can be configured for any combination of dates and weekdays. It’s not so complicated for E7.]

For an ordinary E7 arrangement, these two timetables should be identical. This is not always the case with new installations, which is why we have to find out just what times your meter is set to switch. Only when you know this do you have the information to pass on to the metering people so they can send commands to your meter to correct the fault(s).
  

Each SMETS2 meter is configured with a randomized time offset, theoretically 1-30 minutes, but in practice usually less than 15 minutes. It is a number of seconds unique to the meter. The offset is always a delay, with the object of ensuring that not all heating equipment is switched on at the same instant; there could be consequences for the distribution network otherwise. This delay is applied to both the Tariff Switching Table and to the ALCS Calendar. It’s helpful to know how big your offset is, so that you can take full advantage of the offpeak rate for other usage. 

​@bpking a warm welcome to the OVO Forum!

I can see you’ve had some great help from other members here, and if you’ve got the problem ​@Firedog is alluding to then this can be rectified.

It’s also possible that the figures you’re looking at are skewed and incorrect due to the fact the meter has only recently been installed, and details are still being updated in the background. For example, the screenshot you’ve shared showing usage for the 2nd / 3rd / 4th etc will be inaccurate, due to the fact that you didn’t have a smart meter installed on those days.

In order to get the most accurate usage data your meter needs to be set to provide half-hourly meter readings. You can set it to do so via your online account or app, using this guide:

We’ll await further info from you.

Hello again

Thanks for the detailed information regarding the recent smart meter installation and the action I can take to investigate what is going on with regard to the tariffs. Just to provide a little further clarification, the storage heaters are functioning normally.

When I was contacted initially by Ovo, the representative asked if I would like to submit half hourly readings which I agreed to. I will do the work needed to check that things are as they should be for when the E7 tariff switches on. This is really helpful.

I was informed by Ovo that the meter readings may take some time ‘to settle down’ but my main reason for ensuring the meter is set up correctly is to prevent a battle royale in a few weeks if an extortionate bill is generated and I’m asked why I didn’t reach out to Ovo earlier about this.

Thanks again for the advice!

Thanks ​@bpking, please do keep us updated, and feel free to ask any further questions should they arise.

Fingers crossed there’s no issue, and this is just a visual discrepancy on the app/online ‘Usage’ graphs, which is normal following a smart meter installation. When you’re next billed, compare the bill against the bill you had for the same period - hopefully there shouldn’t be a huge difference.