Smart meters are working but not communicating with OVO - why?

Thanks for the response but is there a reason e-mails are not responded to ? I understand that there will be teething problems with new systems but I think repeatedly not responding to e-mail sent to a customer service centre is pretty poor. I can put up with most things if I’m kept informed. I need to know if Commissioning my Meter is on Ovo’s “to do” list ? , and I’m wondering if this would prevent me from changing supplier ?

Those are questions I can’t answer, @BrendanC. Here on the Forum we are fellow customers.

The Moderators are the same team as those who handle social media. So if you send in a direct message via on Facebook or Twitter and provide your Account Number, then they can chase this up with the Customer Services Dept. If you don’t use social media, then send a Private Message to a Moderator (ask if you don’t know how).

I expect the CS Manager will be none too pleased to hear that a customer has failed to receive the required email responses. That’s a breakdown in the procedures that needs checking.

OVO repeatedly scores highly in the annual Which? survey of domestic Energy Suppliers because their customer support is better than their rivals. This is also depicted in the low level of complaints that get taken up by the Office of the Energy Ombudsman.

We’re not ignoring you intentionally, @BrendanC, we’ve discovered an issue which meant emails haven’t come through to us. This has now been resolved and the team are working through the emails as quickly as possible so you’ll get a reply soon.

Don’t forget you can also reach out on social media and we’ll be happy to help. 

And that’s an important reason why customers should be discussing issues here on the Forum. It enables us to see if a fault, such as missing emails, is being noticed by several customers.

I’m writing on behalf of my stepdaughter.  She transferred to OVO in 2019 and had smart meters installed in October 2020. All was well until she told me this week that her IHD wasn’t showing any meter readings. I had a look and sure enough, it wasn’t. It displayed gas but no readings and no electricity at all. What’s more, it constantly reboots after several minutes. I investigated further and found that the electricity meter stopped sending readings to OVO on August 6th. Before that it was fine so what would cause it to suddenly stop? The WAN/HAN lights are flashing every 3 seconds so there is a connectivity issue but why after a year of no problems? OVO have never alerted her to the fact that they are no longer receiving readings, they just send estimated bills. Why? What’s going on?

Hi there @Albourneboy !

Is your stepdaughter anywhere near Bilsdale by any chance? Because if she is, then I think I know what will explain the root cause of this outage. It’s very likely that the fire at the Arqiva Bilsdale Transmission Station back in August is related. This is beyond OVO’s control I’m afraid and it knocked out basically everything coming from that mast - including the Arqiva WAN service that’s used by Smart Meters in the Northern Territory in that area of the country.

Suppliers can’t easily detect these outages, but I’d definitely recommend asking the Support Team to take a look just in case they’re able to find a solution. Please be advised though that if her meters are meant to be serviced by the Bilsdale station, then I’m afraid it could be a while before that service is fully operational again.

Based on your description and the details over on SmartMe, it sounds as if the meters are trying to re-establish the connection - so it’s likely that there’s a comms outage somewhere. I think the reboots of your IHD are related to it trying to re-establish a link as well, but is unable to do so. Let me grab the expertise of @Lukepeniket_OVO just in case he can help too.

Hi all, hope everyone is OK!

So by the looks of it above you've sent a few details in to be checked. If you are in Arqiva Bilesdale then it's just going to be a wait until the mast is repaired.

If you are in another area the back office team will look at your system with the use of the smart meter health check but ultimately an engineer visit may be required. 

Nothing to do with Bilsdale for 2 reasons. Firstly, the fire was at the end of August, her meters stopped communicating with OVO on 6th August. Secondly, she lives in Scotland 🤣🤣

We've had a couple of members affected recently who came here to ask for help, so it's currently one of the things I like to check until the mast gets fixed permanently.

Based on everything mentioned, it definitely seems like a fault has developed somewhere. Please ask your stepdaughter to contact the Support Team and go through a Smart Meter Health Check so that it can be investigated. They'll keep you posted. 

Hi @Albourneboy and welcome to the OVO online community.

Sorry to hear about the issues your stepdaughter has noticed with her smart meters not sending us meter readings. Our helpful community members have given some great advice on this one:

We’ve got a handy guide to the smart meter health check for our SMETS 1smart meters here and SMETS 2  smart meters here - it involves checking some details on the meters, including the lights which are flashing. Once she’s checked these details she can forward these on to our Support Team, who’ll advise on the next steps.

In the meantime, It’s worth noting that the meter should still be clocking her usage so we’d recommend taking a manual meter reading and submitting this on the ‘Meter Readings’ page of her online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS).

Hope this helps get things sorted. Let us know how you get on -  We’re always happy to offer advice here where we can.