I’ll private message you now @Zin 

Hello @Emmanuelle_OVO 

I have sent an message privately.

I got an email from them and they said the meter is working.

They asked me to contact housing agent.

It happened after installation of meter meter.

Thanks

Hey @Zin,

Sorry for the issues you’re having, 

I requested an ECAUL yesterday. If the issue persists i'd advise following the advice given by the support team. 

You could contact the housing agent as advised by support. If they send an engineer you can ask for a job report.

If the fault/cause of the issue is the smart meter, then OVO can reimburse you (or the housing agent if they are liable) for the engineer cost.

8 years ago I had the same problem. OVO decided I needed a new meter, but what the teenage engineer they sent didn’t understand was that my off-peak systems were all wired to a separate distribution box which was a common arrangement in the early days of economy tariffs.  He had excluded it from the wiring of my new meter so my storage heaters and immersion heater did not work for months until eventually after much complaining to the OVO CEO a NW electricity (electricity supplier in my area) engineer was appointed to rewire the system and include my off-peak junction box. Perhaps the OVO engineers have made the same mistake with your system. Just a suggestion, hope it helps.

Hello@ harryfleming13

Thank you for your comment and it’s really helpful.

I don’t understand it exactly happened after installation of smart meter and now they are asking to contact my letting agent/ landlord to fix that.

Thanks again.

Dear @mazza ,

I’m really really sorry to hear of the pain you have gone through with this whole experience. I’m also worried to read this because I am in exactly the same situation, only with another supplier, not OVO: no heating (storage heaters) or hot water (immersion) since smart meter installed; emergency meter engineer came and said all was installed correctly; calling my supplier and trying to explain the problem, repeatedly, is like banging my head against a wall. Also no-one asked me if I had storage heaters before the installation; I just stupidly assumed it would work. 
 

Anyway glad to hear it was finally resolved for you, although it is a discouraging story!

Richard

Rebel Energy customer

Hey @Richarddwelsh 

I’m sorry to hear you’re in a tricky situation with your supplier.

You’ll need to discuss this with them as there is something they can actively do to try and resolve this issue remotely. We had a few customers go through a few emergency appointments before finding this kind of topic where the remote fix done the trick within hours. 

If you can contact Rebel Energy via webchat or email you can link this topic thread to them, it may help them identify the remote fix they can push for you. I’ve linked below directly to the Best Answer of this topic, hopefully it’ll be helpful if they see it: 

Can I also check that the new meter has 5 ports coming out of the bottom, if you’re unsure feel free to share a photo of the meter with us - this’ll help us make sure that same fix will work.

Let us know how you get on with that, I hope you get it sorted and get the heating and hot water back soon.

Hi @Abby_OVO , thanks for your kind words!

Actually I have already forwarded that link (or one containing the same information) via email to the Rebel Energy customer support. I hope it will help. The problem is that this means nothing to their call centre staff, who after I have persuaded them not to send out yet another engineer, will just parrot the same lines that they have “escalated it to their engineering team and will get back to be” but of course they never do. And my insistence that my house is getting colder and colder seems to fall on deaf ears.

Anyway, I did happen to take a photo of the meter this morning. It’s not very clear but there appear to be 4 cables coming out of the bottom… please don’t tell me that they have installed the wrong type!

Thanks again for your suggestions and taking an interest, I know I am an imposter here being with another supplier :-)

Richard

The meter is the correct type i.e. FIVE Terminal. However, the wiring is incorrect - only FOUR Terminals are wired. Your heating/hot water will NEVER work in this arrangement.

This isn’t because of the Smart Meter - some genius didn’t wire it up properly!

An engineer needs to fix this on-site. Sheer incompetence by the looks of things...

That was also my first thought. But then I wondered about that curious brown bit below the ALCS excrescence; could that be some sort of armour over the switched circuit cable?
  

It could be empty, of course, but perhaps Richard could have a look to see whether there is in fact a cable behind those brown Lego bricks.

Hi @Blastoise186 & @Firedog ,

Here’s a better picture:

So there is indeed a fifth cable coming out of the brown “lego bricks” which I assume is the feed to the off-peak circuit.

However you can also see in this picture that the off-peak reading (“-A value”) after 5 days is still on 0kWh, so I am convinced that this meter just isn’t running in dual-tariff mode. All consumption is being counted on the peak tariff, which is showing 20kWh. If all it takes is for a remote command to be sent to the meter to configure it, why is it so difficult to persuade the call centre staff at Rebel Energy to do this? They don’t seem to care that I’m freezing my ***s off here!

Richard

Hi @Richarddwelsh , ‘-A’ is actually the export reading. 
Theoretically the meter should cycle between the various registers but if not …
Here are the instructions for reading the different rates recorded (they may still not be)

Ah, thanks @BPLightlog that is very useful! I couldn’t work out how to manage the interface but it’s the press-and-hold of K1 to select a menu option that eluded me.

So, it is actually showing T01 = 19.04kWh and T02 = 2.20kWh so I am being charged the off-peak rate for my night-time consumption. But it’s still not switching on the storage heater circuit at night.

Thanks for this, at least I can go back to my supplier with reliable information!

Richard

Thanks for clearing that up; 4 + 1 = 5 ! Good photos really help 

Your supplier should send the commands to configure the ALCS* to match the peak/offpeak timings of the tariff in your contract - it’s apparently not doing anything at all at the moment. This isn’t necessarily the installing engineer’s fault; the configuration of the meter, the communications hub and the ALCS is the supplier’s responsibility and it should be possible to do it all remotely. Customer support staff may not know how to go about this, so you should make sure you get them to activate their metering techs.
 

*   ALCS: Auxiliary Load Control Switch - the white thing that the brown Lego bricks descend from. It’s the add-on that makes an ordinary MA120 meter into an MA120B.  

Thanks @Firedog ! I’ve found out all about the ALCS. I have even managed to find out how to turn it on manually using the menus on the smart meter, so I can witness the heaters coming on and know that there is nothing wrong with the heating installation (not that I ever doubted there was - it’s just that the customer support staff mention every time that I should call out an electrician to check that the heaters are working and I have to persuade them that it’s not that).

When I call them on Monday morning I will specifically mention that they need to remotely set up the ALCS confuguration. I’ll see if that does the trick.

Thanks

Richard

Did you manage to get this resolved @Richarddwelsh?

Not quite yet: I have received an email from the suppliers “Escalation Team”, but it says that they think that the meter needs to be replaced. I responded and told them that an engineer has already attended and found no fault with the meter, and that I believe it’s just the case of a remote ALCS configuration command.

We’ll see what they say to that… but they do seem evry keen to send out engineers at the drop of a hat!

Richard

Hey @Richarddwelsh 

I’m sorry to hear they are pushing back on this.

They should have perhaps access to the last job report where the engineer attended and said that everything is installed correctly with the meter. This should indicate to them that there’s no need for another engineer appointment.

I know it can be difficult, and we had some customers go through a few engineer appointments before they got the correct fix, and in each case, it was as simple as the team sending the configuration command. Have they tried the command? As it’s a simple remote command, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be happy to attempt this.

Keep us updated with how you get on.

Hi @Abby_OVO ,

A second engineer attended yesterday (or third if you include the original installer) who again could find nothing wrong with the meter installation but replaced it anyway because that is what he had been asked to do by the supplier. 

However the off-peak circuit is still not coming on.

Unfortunately the call centre staff at this supplier don’t seem to have access to any reports from the engineers; I have to explain to them every time that the engineers have attended and found nothing wrong. Wehenver I call all they can suggest is to send out yet another engineer - that seems to be the only course of action they can think of. (Several times they have suggested that I call an engineer to “check my boiler” - even though I have explained that it is electric storage heaters and that they have been shown to work when the ALCS is overridden.) 

I did call them this morning and I specifically asked for the remote control commands to be sent to my meter to configure the ALCS. I’m not sure they understood what I was asking but they just said they would “forward this information on”.

Apologies for the long ramble but you can inderstand my increasing frustration with this supplier and its customer support staff that clearly have no clue regarding issues like this!

Richard

Hey @Richarddwelsh,

I’m really sorry to hear this issue has persisted,

I hope they pass the information on, please keep us posted.

Hi @Richarddwelsh , it sounds like they’re not linked too well with the technical meter team. 
It also sounds like the meter engineer is their ‘go-to’ for any meter issue (not sure why these are not pre-set for peak/off peak) and of course the engineer doesn’t visit during that off peak period. 
 

If there’s another engineer due to visit, perhaps show them the off peak circuit working - as you’ve found out how - and explain that it doesn’t switch over. That might stop the ‘working correctly’ response?

There should also be an indication on screen of the switch positions. If you could capture a photo overnight to show the switch not ‘switched’ to complete the proof. 
Of course, you shouldn’t have to do all this but it might shorten the wait. 

I have a similar situation for a woman I’m working with just now, she’s been back and forward with OVO for over two years. I feel like we’ve got a bit of momentum up over the last few days but she was expecting an engineer today and no one has attended. Picture of set up is below - no storage heaters working without being on boost mode:

Any advice would be most welcome, I’ve only been working on it with her the last few days, but not my area of expertise and just looking to get it sorted. Thanks all

I have a similar situation for a woman I’m working with just now, she’s been back and forward with OVO for over two years. I feel like we’ve got a bit of momentum up over the last few days but she was expecting an engineer today and no one has attended. Picture of set up is below - no storage heaters working without being on boost mode:

Any advice would be most welcome, I’ve only been working on it with her the last few days, but not my area of expertise and just looking to get it sorted. Thanks all

 

Hi @housinghelper , yes another 5 terminal meter and you can see the switch contacts on the display (one closed and the other open - bottom right).

As Firedog mentions above :

Your supplier should send the commands to configure the ALCS to match the peak/offpeak timings of the tariff in your contract

The account owner needs to phone customer support and ask for this to be done. 

There’s nothing a visiting engineer can do in this situation other than talk to OVO’s metering people and ask them to send the ECAUL* request, which the customer can do herself. As far as I’m aware, this can only be done remotely by the supplier, not on site.

I’m not even sure that an engineer can see whether the ALCS* has been configured or not and if so, to what times. The only way I could find out after the ECAUL request had ostensibly been sent was to wait up until the time the heaters were supposed to switch on (01:00 in my case!) and see whether they did. Luckily, they did and the little icon on the meter display changed accordingly. Of course, I could have just waited until the following morning to see whether the house was nice and warm.

*   Jargon:

ECAUL: Electricity Configure AUxiliary Load  
ALCS: Auxiliary Load Control Switch. This is a switch inside the meter which turns power to the heaters on and off at the set times. When the switch is off (i.e. during the day), it can be overridden by the boost function, but only for a limited period.  As BP points out, your photo was taken at a time when this switch was off; it’s the one labelled ıı . 

This thread is just shocking to read. In another thread, I’ve been trying to find out when and how SSE and now OVO are going to replace my 93 year old mother’s dual phase RTS controlled Ecomony 10 metering and switches.

There’s no doubt when ever they do manage to supply the correct equipment, I will be INSISTING the work is carried out only in the summer months, and I’ll be testing everything overnight.

None of this should be rocket science