Please take a clear photo of the meter and its surrounds, so we can see how it’s wired up and read what it says on the display.

Your account may well be set up with the correct Economy 7 rates, but the meter also has to play its part. We’ve seen many times that newly-installed SMETS2 meters aren’t properly configured to manage E7. This is a fault in the app the engineer uses to set the meter up, and as far as he can see everything’s right - but it isn’t. If this is the problem, then there’s an easy fix that Support can ask to be made remotely. Let’s see the photo first. 

Hi @hwright,

It seems that our forum volunteer Firedog has already given some good advice here. 

If you’re able to provide a picture of you meter set up, we should be able to advise further.

Hi 

Thanks for you reply.

Photo of meter attached

Hi @hwright , I’ll let Firedog answer fully as he has more experience but it’s the indicators bottom right of the meter display that are key. 

The 1 and 2 labels are for the peak and off peak circuits so it depends on when these switch which control your peak and off peak times. 
The wiring does look correct as far as can be seen up to the consumer unit

Hi,

OK I see what you mean.

Photo attached.

I would assume at 12:00pm the rate two should connect, as it looks an open connection at the moment.

Thanks for the photos - they help a lot. You have an admirably tidy meter cupboard!

BP has already pointed out the salient bit - the little switch icons that show when the two circuits (called here 24 HOUR and OFF PEAK) are active. Icon ı should always show closed, while icon ıı will only show closed overnight.

If you’re in the Glasgow area, your distributor is probably Scottish Power and your Economy 7 offpeak hours are then seven hours between 23:00 and 07:30 GMT (midnight to 08:30 during British Summertime). On your Plan page, you should see the hours that OVO will bill you for. That’s what matters. Then I suggest you get in touch with OVO Support again, perhaps using webchat to avoid language problems. Explain that your heating circuits aren’t working properly and you understand it’s because the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS) in your meter needs re-configuring. Ask them to get the Smart team to send the ECAUL request to your meter to set the ALCS to the timings in your plan, and make sure they understand that it may not work first time.

Once this has been done satisfactorily, you should hear the meter switching and see the little icon change from open to closed within half an hour of the start of the offpeak period. eIt won’t be precisely at midnight if that’s when your offpeak period starts, because there’s a few minutes’ random delay built in to the meter to ensure that not every storage heater and water boiler in Glasgow switches on at precisely the same time - if they did, the city’s electricity network would at least blow a big fuse and at worst … who knows.]

The third piece in this jigsaw puzzle is the Time of Use (ToU) schedule in the meter, which dictates when it flips from recording peak usage to offpeak and vice versa. Let’s hope that is properly configured in accordance with your plan. If you watch the meter during the offpeak period, you should be able to see which ToU rate is active - it should be Rate 2, with Rate 1 active during the peak period. You cycle through the various items in the display by repeatedly pressing blue button A.

Good luck with all this - I went through the same exercise last year when my meter (identical to yours) was installed. It all came right in a couple of days.

Hi Firedog

Many thanks for your detailed reply.

I have gone back with this info, and hopefully the smart meter team are checking into this.

So fingers crossed we may get a resolution soon.

Thanks

Hi @hwright,

It seems that our forum volunteer Firedog has already provided a great response here for you.

Please keep us updated on your progress.

Hi Firedog,

Sorry for not coming back. The problem rumbled on for the rest of the week, . They discovered my account hadn't been set up correctly and no off peak add. However that didn't solve the issue. The conclusion on the Friday was meter was faulty. MDS dispatched. Then I was caught in an argument between Ovo and MDS re the meter.  By chance another chap in MDS contacted someone else in Ovo who noted that the switch hadn't been configured.

This was done and after being told it would take 48hrs before it worked they left.

However on Saturday morning it had worked and I had hot water.

Just been keeping an eye on it  so far so good.

Many thanks all your help as I believe we would not have resolved this without the info you provided. 

I have given feed back for Ovo, MDS and SMS re all the issues caused.

Just waiting to discuss the rest of my complaint at the end of the week once the meter has been monitored Just to make sure. 

Thanks

That’s really good to hear. There are lots of left hands and right hands in this business, I’m afraid - I’m glad you ended up with a pair that matched.