1 meter with 2 MPANs- can I switch to OVO?

I am trying to switch from Powershop to Ovo

In my new flat I have 2 meters - one is live and one is stagnant, and they have different MPANs.  I understand the stagnant one is something to do with Economy 7 - but I don’t have any economy 7 appliances and the meter reading is always the same - so clearly it’s not providing power to anything.

I asked Ovo to take on my supply back in October, but they only applied to take on 1 MPAN (the live one) so Powershop objected because Ovo should have asked to take both meters.  When I told Ovo this they tried to take on both but couldn’t because at the time they were transferring to a new billing system.

I tried again this week on the phone and explicitly asked Ovo to take both meters,  but again they only applied to take one of them (this time the stagnant one) so again the request was rejected by Powershop.

My expectation is that once Ovo has taken the supply they will install a smart meter to replace the 2 existing meters, but the call handlers don’t seem to know how to do this - I’ve spoken to 4 separate people so far this week.

Ideas anyone?  I can’t believe this is the first time Ovo have had to deal with switching 2 MPANS.

Cheers

Andy

The other trick you could try quickly, is whether switching via the website works.

When you do it this way, please check very carefully as to whether the system automatically detects the correct MPANs for your address. If it picks up both correctly, you should be good to proceed. But if it doesn’t, I definitely recommend pausing and letting us know so that this can be looked into further.

Please keep us posted with any progress. You might get lucky!

And yep, it should be possible to get a smart meter upgrade after you switch. Feel free to choose any of the tariffs OVO offers now and you can arrange the meter upgrade once it’s safe and convenient.

Don’t worry about the three month rule on the Better Smart Energy either. That clock is paused during periods where it’s impossible to do an install, such as during a lockdown.

Gotcha.

Yeah, probably not a good idea to risk another try via the website if it’s just going to fail again. You are right too about Economy 7. This is indeed possible with smart meters (it would be a design flaw otherwise!). 

Right now, I’m very tempted to recommend you ask your current supplier to rip out that dead second meter, since it would completely eliminate the second MPAN from the equation. However, if you’re OK with this, I’m actually going to recommend keeping both for now and go with your original plan of moving both over and knocking out the second one later.

For the benefit of any other agents you chat with, I’m going to write up some info for them here.

To get your switch underway, an agent at OVO needs to submit a switch request that covers BOTH of your MPANs at once in order for it to go through. If an agent is not sure, please ask for the case to be escalated to a second level team and they can check this out.

OVO have recently rolled out a new billing platform which is developed by their sister company Kaluza. It’s a completely custom built platform that gives a unique opportunity to have full control over the entire thing, but it also has a few bugs here and there. I’d be very interested to see how well it handles your use case because there’s a similar story over here. 

While that one is about one electric meter and two gas meters, it proves that it is indeed possible to do exactly what you're after. If you’re quick, the Live Chat and phones are still open for another half hour or so today, so you might be able to squeeze in a quick one. Live Chat tends to be best. Please provide them with a link this this thread and ask them to read through quickly. It helps a lot. 

We’ll be here if you get stuck again.

You’re welcome.

And yep, if you let the support team know you had a chat with me in this thread and give them a link, it will almost always make life easier. Sometimes it takes them a few minutes to read through everything, but hopefully you’re OK with that.

As for the smart meter, that’s definitely something best done after you switch, since it’ll be easier for OVO to get everything sorted out once you’re on-supply. If you still get stuck, drop a reply here again and we’ll pick up right where you left off.

It also sounds to me like you’ve discovered a bug in the platform. If you’re OK with this, would you be able to fill out a quick bug report too? It helps the developers a lot and is highly appreciated. I’ve also posted a guide too, if that helps.

Thanks for helping to catch this one!

Great stuff, peeps. I’ve moved this over to another thread on the same query @Andy Winter 

The best answer outlines:

We certainly do take on a set up that has 2 supplies (each with an MPAN) for one meter. a MPAN stands for ‘meter point administration number’, and refers to your property’s supply.

Initially when you start the switch online, we would just pick up the one MPAN, so call us once you've had your welcome letter and we'll make sure to apply for both: 0330 303 5063. It’s best to call as we will need verbal confirmation that you’re happy to switch this other supply to us. 

We would apply a standing charge for each MPAN, so we'd highly recommend you get a smart meter fitted. When we fit the meter, we'd get rid of the surplus MPAN, meaning you'd only pay a single standing charge after the installation.

More info on smart meters (and a link to the booking platform) here

It’s for this reason that I’m surprised to hear that Powershop are rejecting a switch for one of your MPANS. 

I would recommend (as @Blastoise186 did) to confirm with a web chat agent today, link them to this thread, and confirm if the best course of action is to start a switch with the one (main, live) MPAN, and we can manually add the second.

That might be the only way WE can do it, and if that’s the case, you reaching out to Powershop might be needed. However these might be ‘related MPANs’. If the agent reads this comment and isn’t sure, an internal call to 'second line’ will clarify the best option. 

Keep the thread updated if you can! 

Hi @Andy Winter ,

I’m really sorry this is still getting stuck. And it looks like the live chat reps are getting tangled up too...

I definitely think it’s time to call in my secret weapon here… @Tim_OVO , can you bring out the Super Solver 3000 we talked about?

It will be a real shame if there’s absolutely no way to even attempt to get this switch right now without Powershop throwing it in the bin.

It’s almost certainly true that ripping out the second meter would resolve the issue, since that would also knock out the second MPAN and put you back into a more “vanilla” state. But that takes time to arrange and it’s not always easy. If you’re planning to upgrade to a single smart meter anyway, it makes more sense to do all of that work in a single visit after switching.

Situations like this are definitely painful, because it’s not always clear whether it’s just a single meter that magically happens to have to MPANs, or two meters with one MPAN each.

However, we don’t give up that easily. If push comes to shove, the “emergency fallback” option could be having Powershop knock out that second meter completely and disconnecting it so that you can then do a straightforward switch with just the live meter.

I see. Thanks for the details. That seems like a weird setup even for Economy 7!

And yeah, the lockdowns are playing havoc with these sorts of jobs. In addition, simply trying to get that second meter out without a smart meter upgrade will almost certainly come with a hefty cost to it. However, I think OVO can swallow the bill on your behalf if you’re having an OVO engineer upgrade you to a smart meter anyway after switching. Tim can check that for you. :)

I’m going to spin this up quickly while everything is nicely bundled in one place. This might help the devs at Kaluza a bit, since I’m formatting the issue into a format they’re able to use easily. Does this sound about right to you?

What’s the problem?

Attempting to switch to OVO with two electricity meters (one live, one dead) and two MPANs causes a failed switch

How do I make it happen?

1. Be on another supplier with two electricity meters/MPANs at one property (MPAN 1 is live on meter 1, MPAN 2 is dead on meter 2 due to inactive Economy 7)
2. Attempt to switch to OVO directly via the website
3. Wait for the switch process to run through

What should happen when I do this?

The switch process should correctly identify the existence of two meters/two MPANs and attempt to handle this appropriately on my behalf

What happens instead?

UPDATED

New version, at user request

The current supplier raises an objection because only the Live MPAN has been applied for.  This generates a letter from OVO back to the customer stating

Unfortunately, we have had to halt the transfer of your electricity supply as there are 2 supplies registered to your property and we have only have permission to apply for one and your selected tariff does not support this meter set up.

The MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number) we have applied for is: MPAN 1 and has the meter serial number: SERIAL 1.

The MPAN we have not applied for is: MPAN 2 and has the meter serial number: SERIAL 2.

If you would like to switch your supply to OVO, we are able to take both supplies. However, the standing charge is roughly double.

Please give us a call on 0330 3035 063 and let us know if you would like to proceed with your transfer on an alternative tariff. We will then take care of everything else. If you have any questions regarding this please do get in contact with the team who will be happy to help. 

ORIGINAL

As originally written, retained for context

The current supplier raises an objection related to the MPANs and the switch process fails

Is there anything else you think might be useful to know?

Yes. This report was written by @Blastoise186  on behalf of @Andy Winter in relation to a forum thread which can be found at 

The existing supplier is/was Powershop in this instance. The meters in question appear to have been originally configured for Economy 7 with a local timeswitch, however the current tariff is single rate and the second meter is no longer actively used. This appears to be a possible non-standard setup for Economy 7 and may be throwing the platform into a confused state. This might also be a possible edge case.

Sure thing, that’s all done.

I’ve edited the updated version to use generic references for the Serial Numbers/MPANs, purely because this helps to avoid confusion during testing.

Hi there @Gus123 ,

It should indeed be possible to get this sorted out. Can you take a photo  of your current meters and share them in your next reply please? That will definitely make things easier for us.