Great question, @Darren_G, and @Blastoise186 has made a great guess with this one - 

There isn’t a standard peak/off peak schedule depending on your area as this can vary from supplier to supplier. Sounds like your schedule now matches our standard pattern for smart meters we install in your area (which you can find more info on here), That being said it might be worth speaking to our Support Team if you’d prefer your original schedule, as this pattern shouldn’t change when you switch supplier (but it might when you get a new meter installed). 

Hope this helps explain, let us know if it’s raised any more questions as know it’s a complicated one! 

Thanks @Blastoise186 and @Jess_OVO, I had just assumed the E7 hours were a DNO decision as a leftover from the original intention of Economy 7 to balance out the load on the grid. I don’t really mind what the hours are, as long as I know what they are 

I suppose my wider intent is to bottom out exactly what happens with SMETS2 Economy 7 meters when consumers switch suppliers, and ensure that

1. the tariff times always match the switching times
2. both change together if consumers move to a supplier whose E7 times are different 
3. consumers are clearly told what the off-peak hours are whenever they switch, so that they can maximise their savings from using the off-peak electricity

I’m not on a crusade, but just think that perhaps there’s a bit of a gap in industry procedures here and there’s an opportunity for OVO to help improve things. Not everybody would a) notice or b) care about it 

These are some really important points to raise and just to reconfirm this for others who might find this thread in future: The schedule of your off peak/peak tariff times and 5th port meter switch shouldn’t be affected by a change of supplier, but they may be affected by a meter exchange. If there is any unexpected change to a time-switch/ tariff schedule following a switch, please reach out to the Support Team who can make sure these are aligned.

We’ve raised the issue you experienced to our Smart team, as it’s obviously not what we’d expect to happen and are looking in to whether this was a one-off discrepancy or might be due to a flaw in our processes, so it’s been really valuable to raise this one to us.

How are you getting on with your new account now this one’s been resolved? Managed to get to grips with your usage graphs yet? 

Hi @Jess_OVO , I can see a usage graph but it is showing very round numbers of kWh each day, so I think probably another symptom that my smart meter isn’t sending full data just yet. I finally got round to chatting to the support team though, and sent them some more info about my meter, so hope to be up to maximum smart capability soon!

Welcome back @Darren_G ,

That sounds possible. It may also depend on what settings your smart meter is on and whether it’s on the ones you want. Especially if it’s on say, Monthly when you’d rather have Daily! That can be fixed later on of course. It’s also possible that a reading might have gone in somehow recently which has caused MyOVO to average out the usage data for every day in between the most recent and last readings.

I’ve also heard of a few cases where meters storm through the commissioning process so fast that they actually start submitting some level of readings as early as halfway through the commissioning process, beyond which point the meters really start to wake up and become closer to fully active. This is one case when you really can start to see actual usage data flowing in much earlier than you’d expect. But it’s worth noting that if you get lucky like this, the meter is probably still commissioning and not everything will be fully ready yet. OVO got Raichu working in record time and the timing that Raichu started submitting was very ironic. Tim and Jess know that story. 

I spotted that same problem with my smart meter on 28 March this year (2022) and reported it to OVO. Four months later and they have not yet sent corrected instructions to my meter, and so are still over-charging me for any power taken by my off-peak connected devices for 30 minutes every morning.

Talking to their customer support on the phone was generally a total waste of time as none of them understood how smart meters work.

Hi everyone, 

I’ve updated this related topic, and I wanted to share the latest info I have been given about this:

Before I jump into specifics, please be aware that the advice below may not apply to you. Our Support Team are best placed to access your account and give you account specific advice, so please take this with a pinch of salt.

I’ve shared this thread with a bunch of very clever colleagues who work for OVO to support the smart meter roll out.

They have advised that the tariff and the ALCS (auxiliary load control switch - a relay that can open and close to power things attached to it like storage heaters) are two separate objects in a smart meter.

When OVO implemented a capability for economy 7 (E7) in SMETS2 meters, it introduced it with a working assumption that there was one SSC/TPR combination for each MPAN area and as such, set up the tariffs/ALCS schedules to this assumption.

This has proven to be incorrect and as a result, there are instances where some customers have switched to us on an SSC/TPR that we don't currently support to the minute. This is being corrected, with Kaluza (our billing platform provider) mapping all the possible SSC/TPR combinations to ALCS/tariff schedules for each area, but we’re not sure when this will be delivered.

In the meantime we can do a manual workaround to amend either the ALCS or the tariff. If you haven’t done this already please request that a ticket is raised with Support for this, and let me know here if you have any issues. It might be easiest to simply link this topic in a web chat, which you can access here.  

Hope this helps,

Tim

Thank you Tim.

I did not know that it was called an ALCS, but had worked out that it must exist and be timed separately, and had emailed OVO to that effect and asked them to fix the problem early yesterday morning!

I am an ex-SSE economy 7 customer so my meter had been set correctly set to the times of their off-peak period.

Good to have a sensible answer, rather than the rubbish sent earlier by another forum member.

You have reversed my decision to unsubscribe to avoid the junk in future. Thank you.

John

Please be respectful of other members and their advice, @JohnRL44 - this is a safe online space for members to offer advice and support to each other. You’re free to ignore it, but please appreciate it and the intention to help. Our house rules outline our expectations for member contributions here:

If these expectations aren’t meant in member contributions , that member will be removed. 

I’m glad we were able to help. 

I have an SMETS 2 meter and the off peak times on it are set to economy 10 times, but I am on economy 7, OVO energy are disputing this can happen. 

I can see on my meter readings when my off peak comes on at 1pm and 8pm. If I turn off my off peak fuse box it doesn't!

I have been in a dispute with OVO energy for 10 months about this now, could someone please shed some light onto this situation 

Typical day, rises are when off peak comes on for hot water, 

Hey @Salltysea,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community.

Sorry you’ve been going back and forth with Support.  Thank you for this really interesting question. 

It’s account specific and you’ve been in a dispute with OVO so I'd be reluctant to make too many statements about your situation. If your smart meter was installed by another supplier the time pattern regime (TPR) may be set up to provide different hours of off peak usage. 

It's possible to test this by doing a load test during any time you think the meter's off peak register is clocking. Boil a kettle and watch one register increase and the other stay the same.

I don't have access to your account and can't see any notes. But in short it's possible to have a smart meter with OVO that is economy 10. If you had it fitted by OVO and have never switched away, it will be economy 7.

Here is some advice you might find helpful in similar threads:

I hope this helps

Thank you for the reply, from doing more research on this forum, I now believe that the Auxiliary load control switch is set wrong, would me paying the £149 to have a meter inspection cover this?

There’s actually an easier fix for this.

OVO should be able to remotely reconfigure the meter at no charge via SMETS Commands. I’m not sure how to request it though.

Yeh this is tricky to advise on, @Salltysea. I think it’s worth getting our Support team to send this to another internal team who have a lot more training and access to the back end of the smart meter systems. 

They will know if and how the change is needed. Keep us updated in case this helps anyone else with a similar question...

Hi Tim, could you advise me of the way to contact the right department, I did have someone helpful, last year who sent an update to my meter, which just stopped the handheld device from connecting, there was then supposed to be an engineer out, this was cancelled twice, and I have not heard from an advanced resolution specialist since Dec 21.

I have been on the phone to mark at the advanced resolution team, he has no access to the readings that my meter sends, and apparently nobody in OVO energy, can see the readings that I can of my energy use!

The SMETS2 team are not answering him and I am not able to speak with them anyway! 

Also if this is the case (link below), is my meter timing on economy 10 and and I should be being billed economy 7 rates at economy10 times.?

Hi @Salltysea, 

I’m sorry for the issues you’ve been having.

When you say ‘the readings you see’ are you referring to seeing smart meter readings on your online account or In Home Display (IHD)? If you are seeing usage on the IHD it may still mean we aren’t in communication with your smart meters. 

We’ve got a great guide here which will help you identify smart meter issues through the online account or app:

If we aren’t in communication with your smart meters please complete the Smart Meter Health Check (SMHC) and send the answers to our Support Team: 

I don’t have access to your account but it is possible that your meter is Economy 10. Here is how to check when your meter is clocking at off peak:

Quote “It's possible to test this by doing a load test during any time you think the meter's off peak register is clocking. Boil a kettle and watch one register increase and the other stay the same.”

It’s good to hear your account is now with advanced resolutions. 

Keep us posted with how you get on!