Why is my new SMETS2 gas meter not sending my meter readings to OVO?

I’ve just had my meters changed at last after two no shows by OVO, this for solar SEG, I’ve been left with an IHD not displaying gas charges and no blue emblem either, inspected gas meter and no lights flashing unlike the electric that flashing every five seconds.

phoned the Shell engineer who fitted them, completely ignored all my messages left to him explaining  I had a fault, so far all OVO have done is ask for meter numbers that I have previously sent to them, so no help whatsoever, so any Idea what is wrong as the service so far from OVO is disgraceful 

Hi @fazerboy ,

Thanks for stopping by the forum today. I’m Blastoise186, one of the forum volunteers here.

I think I can diagnose this one pretty easily. It’s highly likely your gas meter is still setting itself up and isn’t yet ready to start communicating with your IHD - it can take up to six weeks for this to complete. If you’d like me to, I can help with a quick diagnostic, but I could do with seeing photos of your meters so that I know what you’ve got.

Thanks!

Hi

thanks for your reply, the period of six weeks was never mentioned by the installation engineer or OVO so far, which I would expect if they have the experience of this previously, so a little annoying if this is a common problem.

Any further help would be beneficial as OVO don’t seem to be assertive in producing answers for me or actually doing anything to resolve the poor service so far that I have had from them 

Photos of meters fitted on 11.4.22 

Ok, it looks to me as if the gas meter is connected and is getting a good signal. It’s probably just not ready to start talking yet.

The six week commissioning period isn’t a fault, but a standard process across all suppliers. It’s not very often that any of them mention this upfront I’m afraid, so OVO is no worse than anyone else in that factor.

Sorry to hear of the difficulty you’ve had reporting the smart meter installation issues, @fazerboy.

As @Blastoise186 mentions, this sounds like the expected 6 week initialisation process. Read more about what’s going on behind the scenes here.

Have you managed to login to your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS) to see whether the usage data is being received yet?

Hi,

just had a new Smart Meter put in recently.

Electricity is sending readings. Gas is not sending readings. In addition my old Gas Box was removed, l assumed because it does not conformed with new regulations.

Therefore l have a brand new Serial Number, for the Gas Meter. However OVO still have the old Meter Serial Number on my OVO App, so l cannot even give them a
manual reading. I recently did give them an reading of 10 units and the bill went over £2700 - unbelievable.

I have tried phoning, sending emails, even writing to OVO Head Office about my problem, no response whatsoever. Maybe l can get some help here?

Hi @brianlincoln2416 and thanks for posting about this. 

I’ve copied some advice from the ‘Best Answer’ above, about what happens after a smart meter is fitted:

“It’s great to hear about your new S2 meters. If you’ve just had these installed it’s worth remembering that it can take up to 6 weeks for your account to be updated with your new meter details.

If you’ve logged into your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS) during this time we might not yet be able to show your smart meter usage data and may still request some manual meter readings. Not to worry, this should correct itself once the initialisation process is completed. There’s more great advice on this great member guide.”

With that in mind your best bet is to hold tight for a few more weeks and your account should be updated with everything by then. 

In the meantime, can you let me know about that gas meter box: was a replacement advised by the engineer? Is the meter outside without a box?

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your response..

The Gas Engineer took every thing out and replaced with a Brand New Gas Meter. He asks us if we could smell Gas, we said No.

He told me that our Old Gas Meter was past its sell-by date and needed replacing in line with current regulations . Hence brand new Gas Serial Number.

Electric/Gas/Smart Meter are all located together in a cubby hole under the stairwell..

Can you tell me how to send a picture, not very IT minded at 70 years of age.

Kind Regards

Brian Lincoln

Sorry for the confusion there, @brianlincoln2416.

Sounds like it was the gas meter itself that was replaced rather than the meter box then? During a smart meter installation we’d usually replace both meters as this should enable us to to collect readings from both meters automatically. Sometimes if the distance between the meters is over 18 metres, the gas meter might struggle to connect, however it’s worth waiting until the meters are fully initialised 6 weeks after the install date to confirm this.

Even if the new gas meter can’t send us readings automatically, it may have been necessary to replace your old meter if it was out of certification. You can read more about this here. You’ll still be able to take a manual reading from the new smart meter if needed, check out the thread below for help with this:
 

Hi Jess,

Thank you for your response.

Your suggestion of a manual reading is not applicable to me simply because OVO have not recorded my new Gas Serial Number on their App. 
 

I did give one manual reading of 10 units to OVO recently and suddenly my bill went to a minus figure of over £2,700!

I will not give another reading until my New Gas Serial Number is recorded, don’t want another massive bill.

OVO really need to sort this situation out for me as this is causing great stress to my Wife and I, we are both pensioners..

To be totally honest l should never have upgraded to a Smart Meter, it does not even work, what’s the point.

And this 6 week ruling needs looking at as well, strange that the Smart Meter gave my Electricity Readings straight away but not my Gas Readings.

The same situation as my next door neighbour, but where they have requested Shell Energy to send a meter man around every 3 months to read their Gas Meter, to save them getting on their hands and knees to read their meter, both elderly pensioners as well.

Regards

Brian

I’m so sorry to hear of the undue stress that’s been caused following your installation, @brianlincoln2416.

It sounds like the reading you’ve entered has generated some out-of-line charges as it’s been linked to your previous meter serial number. Not to worry, the engineer will have taken the final meter reading from this meter before it was removed so this erroneous charge will be corrected as soon as we’re able to get your meter details updated. 

Great to hear that your electricity meter is already up and running. Whilst sometimes one or both meters might be good to go from the day they’re installed, we do have to allow this 6 week window as there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to get everything updated on your account and your new smart meters intialised. One of our community members has gone in to more details on this great guide, if you’re interested to learn more.

As you mentioned taking a manual reading might not be easy for you, if the gas meter isn’t able to send us readings automatically, it’s worth making sure you’ve been added to our Priority Services Register. This is a free service offered by all energy suppliers which makes sure we’re able to offer extra services to those who might need them, such as a quarterly meter reader visit. You can sign-up for this service online here or by getting in touch with the Support Team.

I hope this helps.

Hi Jess,

Thank you for your most comprehensive response, much appreciated.

Hopefully OVO Energy will sort out this problem for us shortly.

Kind Regards 

Brian

Our old smart meters (not working properly ever) were upgraded in Q3 22 and we are frustrated by the inability of said smart meters to actually work and the IHD unit has been a useless piece of shiny tech since day 1.

We do not know where we stand with our bills our DD request was £160 before all the current stupidity started, we know it will rise and Ovo have suggested a DD value of £420 at some points and currently £215 despite us apparently having a credit at one point in excess of £500. This has now been credited to our bills but no real explanation of how.

For clarity;

Over the period 09/02/23 - 24/02/23 15 days  we used 65 kWh gas ave of 4.33 kWh per day - user readings

On our statement Ovo estimate for period 25/02/23 - 09/03/23 12 days we only used 2 (two) kWh estimated consumption. How on earth do they come up with wildly inaccurate estimates when they have actual consumption data available?

Based on my readings of our gas meter we are currently using an average of 5.01 kWh per day

I have supplied daily reading over a significant portion of time since the meters were fitted (they still dont work) dropping to weekly and biweekly. This means that Ovo should be able to produce an estimate more accurately than they are currently doing, they should be able to produce a bill that is substantially more accurate, but they dont. Why is this, what aspect of the process am I missing here?

Do they not use the reads I give them? That would seem odd as the readings for 09/02 - 24/02 are clearly used on our statement?

Why can they not pick up the actual meter readings from the smart meters (certainly testing that title aren’t we?)

Please tell me that we arent the only ones suffering this drudge..

Before anyone asks this is something to do with the legacy billing engine called Apollo, which few people if any at Ovo truly understand. At least that’s the impression I get when I try to talk to CS.

Apologies if this has a tinge of frustration attached, but honestly after multiple accounts have been canned and CS despite their best efforts can not resolve the situation I really am at the end of my tether with Ovo.

Finally; using my best guess at consumption I have looked at swapping suppliers and it’s slightly more expensive with most that I’ve tried Eon, Shell, Octopus, EDF  where I could get a quote . If you have suggestions on alternates feel free to suggest.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Hi,

I’ll need to see what meters you’ve got first before I can recommend anything. Please provide photos of them in your next reply.

Thanks

Thanks for posting this, @yetanothername.

You called out the legacy billing platform, which internally we refer to as ‘Apollo’. Have you been advised your account is on this system?

Otherwise I’d recommend you view your meter reading history to see if they’re labeled as smart readings: https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings. The meter may not be sending us your readings every day.

Alternatively it may not be sending them at all due to communication issues, which you can diagnose here.

Hi, I had my smart meters installed on Thrs and the gas reading is not showing only the electricity is.

The engineer explained how to toggle between gas and electric but only the electricity reading shows.

I’ve switched off and on a few times and placed it next to the smart meter, there is no problem with range.

does anyone have any advice?

Hi @TracyV welcome to the customer forum. Smart meters normally take a few weeks to properly sync and make full contact. If you’re looking at your In Home Display (IHD) it sometimes helps if you can leave it closer to your meters if possible. Otherwise it should get connection and show your usage in a few weeks

Thankyou BPLightlog. You were right I did mean my IHD, it’s right next to the meters so the distance shouldn’t be a problem but if it can take a few weeks to sync properly then that’s good to know. What made it appear like something wasn’t working properly was because the electricity reading was there straight away but there is nothing for the gas.

Many thanks 

hi

we have both gas and electricity smart meters and the han is working for both and information received by the ihd for both but for the wan only gas meter readings are being received into my online account which bizarely says that an electricity smart meter has not been installed as they were both installed at the same time. the communications hub is a standard edmi 420.

can someone help why my electricity readings are not being automatically sent?

hi

we have both gas and electricity smart meters and the han is working for both and information received by the ihd for both but for the wan only gas meter readings are being received into my online account which bizarely says that an electricity smart meter has not been installed as they were both installed at the same time. the communications hub is a standard edmi 420.

can someone help why my electricity readings are not being automatically sent?

Hi @keithy

Welcome to the customer forum, i am just a customer like you. 

A few initial thoughts 

On the page there are details of your meters

https://account.ovoenergy.com/plan

Are they the same as what you see on the actual meters?

When did you have the meters installed?

Have you been with OVO long? 

Probably useful to check if any of the 3rd party apps can see the results

https://hugoenergyapp.co.uk/