Why is my off peak not working after smart meter installed?

Morning ​@Mila,

I hope you’re well and had a good weekend. I’m really sorry to see that this is still ongoing. Please don’t attempt to remove anything from the metering set up. Have you spoken to our Support Team yet and logged a complaint? If you’ve done this and have a complaints reference number, please could you let me know what has been advised to you as to how this is being resolved?

I’m also going to send you a private message. Please get back to me when you can.

Cheers,

Ben

Hi again ​@Mila,

Thank you for getting back to me.

I know that this isn’t the reply you’d want to hear, but the OVO Complaints team have confirmed that everything is set up as it should be, and the new meter is in good communication, and is sending us peak and off peak readings, which you are being charged for. On our side, and from a billing perspective, everything is set up as it should be. There is nothing we can do to get the heating working as it should do, and the only advice that we can give is to use the ‘boost’ function until you can get an electrician to come and fix the issue. 

You can search for an electrician here: https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/find-an-electrician/.

I’m really sorry to echo what our Complaints team have said - it’s a shame how this has panned out. I hope the electrician can get things sorted quickly for you. 

Ok can you tell me how much is registering on the off peak usage as nothing is happening my end? 

You should be able to see what is being recorded offpeak on your meter. Repeated presses of blue button ‘A’ should cycle through a number of different screens. You should eventually see TOU Rate 1 and then  TOU Rate 2; with any luck, TOU Rate 1 (TOU = Time of Use) should show you how many units (kWh) have been used at peak rate since the meter was installed, while TOU Rate 2 should be what’s been used at the offpeak rate. You’ll see truncated readings, so even though the actual reading is 1234.999, you’ll still see just 1234. You’ll realize that all usage during offpeak hours is recorded on the offpeak register, so there should be some offpeak units used by, for example, fridges and freezers and anything else that’s always on.
 

Exactly right ​@Firedog, thanks for your help.

Really tricky one ​@Mila and I’m sorry it’s not one we can fix. The meter has been installed and is clocking usage, so the heating system is what needs looking at, and our engineers are only able to fix and replace meters. We can’t touch household appliances I’m afraid.

Hi again.

Ive been I touch with the Facebook group energy support and advice UK ad I am not getting anywhere on this.

They advised me that the fifth terminal on the smart meter may need activating/reactivating . Can anyone advise how this can be done.

Thank you 

Hi ​@Mila,

As our Complaints team has advised that you’ll need an electrician to fix it, then I’m afraid you’ll need to get an electrician to visit and fix it. On the off-chance that an electrician comes and advises that it’s an issue that an OVO metering engineer needs to resolve please send the electrician’s report to our Complaints team, who’ll look into refunding you the money.

So basically long and short is I was happily with OVO for 4 years moved to British Gas as coming in cheaper but they messed my switch up and i reverted back to OVO

During the switch they have messed up my 2 rate Alcara 5 stem meter. My off peak circuit is constantly live 24 hours a day causing my storage heaters and water heater to kick and consume peak rate electricity.

I know this is something to do with the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ACLS) not being set up properly. 

My meter is showing this icon below with LC2 showing when it should have the 2nd contactor icon show open during peak and closed position when switch on during off peak.

Switch ı should be always closed (o¯o); it controls the power to the stem/tail labelled 4, for everything not on the offpeak circuit. Switch ıı is the one for heating, closed only during offpeak hours. This is the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS), governing power to stem/tail 5. 

 This is how it shows on my neighbours meter in our block of flats.

Surely it something needs to be programmed here correctly. I have an engineer booked out for a site visit Monday.  I was wondering in the mean time you can shed some light on this. I have seen similar post on here and it seems ​@Tim_OVO  is very knowledgeable and helped with a similar issue.

At present I manually have to switch off my Off Peak Switch to stop my storage heaters and water heater to be constantly on and wait until 1am to switch the Off Peak circuit back on, and then turn off in morning.

Thanks in advance!

Howdy ​@Sukey2K !

I’m afraid Tim has moved on from the Forum.

However, the command to reconfigure ECAUL/ALCS should do the trick - let OVO know and they can arrange it for you.

Yes, something’s wrong! The Load Control 2 switch LC2 is a little 2A contactor designed to control a bigger (often 100A) external contactor for heavy loads like storage heaters and immersion heaters. This is connected separately from the fifth meter tail, using only a low-power cable. Your pictures don’t tell us much about how the meter is wired up, but if there’s constant power to the storage heaters, either they’re wired to the constant circuit along with everything else (appliances, sockets and lights) or there’s a large contactor somewhere that’s constantly energized - something it’s most probably not designed to be.

It’s possible, I suppose, that the LC2 icon is showing when the big (100A) internal LC contactor is energized. This shouldn’t be possible, but who knows - especially if BG’s techs have been messing with the meter*. In any event, the visiting engineer should be able to get you well on the way. Once the wiring’s been sorted out, the engineer should ask his contacts at HQ to send the ECAUL request to configure the ALCS properly.

*  We did have a case not long ago where BG had been trying to configure a smart meter in Scotland. They managed to screw up the meter’s software so badly that the whole meter had to be replaced after OVO had taken it over. 

Thank you, as mentioned previously BG haven't done nothing physically, this only occurred once we switched to British Gas. I was trying to get sorted it out with them and their customers service was awful. Maybe there is something physically wrong with the meter but prior to the switch I was with OVO for 4 years and it work perfectly!

Sounds like BG messed with the configs in ways they’re not supposed to.

OVO can probably fix that. There’s ways to fix this!

So OVO booked the engineer to visit today but no one from MDS turned up! This is getting well frustrating now.  Called OVO again and no arranged another engineer to visit next week. I explained everything about the ALCS/ ECAUL if anything can be done remotely but no, seems to be done on the  meter itself. Now have a engineer booked by Field Force

Sorry to hear about the missed appointment ​@Sukey2K, very frustrating. If you didn’t get at least 24 hours’ notice for the cancellation then you may be owed back a Guaranteed Standards of Performance compensation payment.

You can also find more info on this in this Forum topic:

Let us know how the appointment with our in-house engineers goes; hopefully no issues with the next one.

Hi it’s been a long time but I’ve only just got this sorted. After three visits from Ovo meter engineers, nothing changed. I took the matter to the ombudsman who found in my favour another Ovo  meter engineer came after this But could only reiterate that everything was fine. I got to my own electrician in who discovered within five minutes of being in my property that when the smart meter was installed, no neutral cable had been attached, meaning that although electricity was available and the cable from the outside world showed as live,  it was not forming a circuit for the off peak. Please forgive me if the terminology is not technical I am not in electrician, but I hope that people who are electricians will understand what the problem was. He also was critical of the standard of work done by Ovo engineers and tidied up everything neatly that they had left in a mess. The next morning I finally had full heating for my storage heaters.

I am glad to say that Ovo have agreed to pay the cost of my electrician. I had to communicate again with the ombudsman and take time to send photographs of before and after together with my electrician’s report in order for this to happen. Without the work I had to put in and the time and effort of contacting the ombudsman, nothing  would’ve happened as Ovo Engineers consistently told me the System should be working, but they could not explain why it was not. I was very fortunate in having the money to pay the electrician upfront;other people might not be so fortunate.

A day or so ago I heard from Ovo that they would like to send some engineers round to look at my set up so it can be used as training for them. I have agreed to this because I think it’s really important that no one else is put in the position that I have been put in. 

I’m glad you finally got everything working. I do have a couple of comments, though.
  

The mysterious black BICC box seems to have four cables connected. Two of them are red and brown, labelled L (for Line).  The other two are both labelled N for Neutral. I could only assume that one L-N pair was incoming and the other outgoing. There’s only so much diagnosis that can be carried out from photos, so even OVO’s expert was apparently confused by this: “Everything looks ok from a wiring point of view.” 

It was on 25 August last that I wrote “you’ll have to get an electrician in to see what the problem is.” It looks like an awful lot of time and effort could have been saved had you done that then. 

Thank you. I’m aware I was advised by you and probably others to get my own electrician in but my argument has always been and will continue to be that Ovo should be using properly trained people to install their metres and not leave it up to the customers to sort out the problems they create. Also, many people cannot afford to pay an electrician upfront and then wait to see if Ovo will repay them. I am now leaving this forum as I have sorted the issue. Thank you to everybody who commented in an attempt to be helpful