Storage Heater trying to charge outside offpeak time with change to Smart Meter

Hi @JamieTall , can you post a photo of your smart meter please. From that someone might be able to help

Ok, so your new meter is a 5 terminal model (see the cable bottom right slightly forward of the others).

This type of device switches from peak to off peak by enabling the 5th terminal during off peak times which means that your heaters are supplied only when that feed is live. These devices do switch on and off at timings designed to prevent all local off peak switching at the same time. That means that it might not switch exactly on the hour but you should still get a full off peak period even if the switching means that it is off just after the hour. 
When you refer to your ‘smart hub’ I assume that you’re talking about your IHD (in home display) which is not a good indicator of when things switch. 
If the circuit does switch on during off peak - that’s a start .. we’ve seen several that don’t. 
The timings should be driven by your smart meter, nowhere else and so you should make sure that any off meter time switch doesn’t prevent power getting through. 

Hmm .. the offset on switchover should be just a few minutes at most, not several hours. 
From what you say, either the meter isn’t switching at the correct time (in which case it need a reset) or there’s another time switch somewhere in the circuit. 
 

It sounds as if the schedule for the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS) isn’t right, even though the meter is switching its counters from peak to offpeak and back again at the right times, which are given on your Plan page. The two should match. Yes, you’ll have to contact Support and get them to ask the smart team to send the ECAUL request to configure the ALCS. It might take a couple of tries to get the change to stick.

I’d guess that the LED just shows that the power supply is live, i.e. that the fifth terminal is live. It’s the heater’s internal clock that switches it* on at midnight and off at 07:00 (“I have checked the settings on the heater and it shows the off peak tariff time is 12am to 7am”). So it’s not charging between midnight and 03:00 because the ALCS is off, and not between 07:00 and 10:00 because the equipment’s heating elements are off even though the ALCS is on.

Every element of the timing puzzle has to be in alignment: the tariff (as shown on the Plan page), the tariff timings and rates as pushed to the meter (to manage its registers) and thence to the IHD, the ALCS to match the tariff timings and the time switches on the heaters themselves. This looks to be all in order except for the ALCS calendar, which is remotely controlled by the smart team at OVO. ECAUL should fix it.

*   ‘it’ being the heating element. There should be 24-hour power to the heater via a separate circuit to control its fans, so it discharges heat more quickly when asked. Quantum call this the ‘comfort’ setting, I think. The LED presumably only monitors the feed to the heating element. 

Hi

This unfortunately became the least of my concerns as OVO installed a pre payment smart meter that would not accept top ups. After 4 days of constant phone calls, extremely poor service and losing power an emergency engineer came. He replaced the smart meter back to an old style prepayment meter which I had before. He stated a smart meter should have never been installed and what was installed by the OVO engineer was done incorrectly. He theorised the storage heater was not being sent the right information because it couldn’t hold a signal.

Back to the old style meter and the storage heater is back working as it should. Now I’m facing a customer service wall of trying to get back my missing top ups, my previous meter balance, and all the compensation that was promised over and over. They refuse to transfer me and promised callbacks are never made. 
 

It has been a deeply stressful experience and continues to be so, but I’m persistent with daily emails to their complains department imploring them to take ownership to resolve this.

The alarming thing is the meter was originally changed due to a complaint about a faulty meter that was never dealt with that I had to contact the ombudsman about. I’m now back to square one with OVO owning me money and refusing to talk to me. It’s been one bit hellish circle to end up back to where I was in December.

Hi

I’d appreciate that I’ve grown exhausted with their advance resolutions department and their lack of ownership.

I am with OVO PAYG. I have an account number, a complaint reference number, and an OVO ombudsman complaint number. I’ve also kept a full record of every time I’ve contacted OVO, what they’ve promised and what happened.

I’m now at a point where I’m sending an email every 48hours asking the same questions over and over and no one is replying. When I call up I am told my complaint is at ‘Tier 2’ and I can’t be transferred and I will be called back. These callbacks do not happen.

As it stands at the moment. OVO have not returned the balance that was on my previous meter that they told me would be transferred over. OVO are holding money that I topped up that never got credited to my meter. I was promised compensation for loss of earnings over two days as I had to sit in the house with no power waiting for callbacks and then for an engineer. This hasn’t been honoured. And finally the new meter has a standing charge over 3 times what I had before and no one will tell me why and each day I’m giving OVO more money that could be in error.

The ombudsman have said since the original remedial actions have been completed (eventual installation of new working meter) any issues that have arisen from this would need to be a new case in which I have to wait 8 weeks before I can raise it.

So it’s 8 weeks of resending the same complaint and hoping someone eventually responds.