Do I have to get a smart meter if I switch to OVO?

I’m thinking of switching from British Gas to OVO.  I don’t have a Smart Meter, and don’t want one either.  Will I have to have one if I go with OVO?

Great to hear you’re thinking of joining us @foreststar, see above for more info, if you have any more questions let us know! 

Cheers! 

Hi @foreststar. I’m glad to see you’ve raised this issue on the Forum. There are a multitude of differing views about Smart Meters being voiced here, and you are certainly not alone.

I had Smart Meters fitted 9 months ago, and had a number of problems. However, it has been extremely useful seeing how these  were addressed over the ensuing months. If they’d worked first time then I wouldn’t have learned nearly so much.

You can read of my experiences over here on my Topic about SMETS2 Installation.

During the next few months there will be stories in the press and here on the Forum about customers using Smart Meters for innovative purposes well beyond just delivering usage data back to their Energy Supplier.

Whether you have Smart Meters or not should not dissuade you from joining in with comment or questions about these new technologies. It’s the diversity of viewpoints which makes this Forum so useful.

Thanks for your replies.  Now I’ve only ever paid for my bills once my meters have been read, and my quarterly bill’s been sent. If I go with Ovo, I’m going to pay a set amount each month direct debit.  Now how do they (and myself) find out if I’m overpaying or underpaying?  Do they come out to read my meter occasionally?

Good point @foreststar. You will still send in manual readings - preferably once each month. The basis of this is trust.

When my Smart Meters weren’t fully operational I received an email reminder about 4 days before the optimal monthly read-date. I usually tried to put in the readings a day or two early. That produced bills with 29 or 30 days of “customer supplied reading” and 1 or 2 days of “estimated reading”.

OVO use a third-party company, Morrison Data Services, to log all meter readings. It is Morrison who would attend on site to do an official reading as and when required.

The exact interval of these official readings varies according to

• the age of your meter(s)
• the deviation of your manual readings from an expected norm
• safety-check intervals (typically every 2 to 3 years)

If you have difficulties in providing manual readings, then there are ways to accommodate this. About a year ago, a customer on this Forum pointed out that his electricity meter was in the basement, and he could no longer use the stairs to reach it. There are solutions to such problems and OVO Customer Services need to be informed so they can provide advice and make the necessary arrangements.

I currently use EDF and have a SMETS1 meter installed by British Gas.  It’s pretty unreliable and most of the time the IHD doesn’t show gas readings which are also not sent submitted to the central system.

EDF say the issue is probably caused by the distance between my Gas and electric meters, but can’t offer any solution.

I found that OVO are the only provider to offer the smart meter relay.  Will this work with SMETS1?  Would OVO install a SMETS2 meter if I switch?

They might but the companies are focused on getting those without smart meters locked in rather than fixing existing problems. It’s about targets.

Hi @Mhop74 ,

That sounds like a tricky situation you have there!

Firstly, I need to let you know that OVO has terminated support for their Smart Relays. If you don’t already have one, you won’t be able to get one now. They’re also incompatible with SMETS2 equipment because the NCSC banned them from being used because of security vulnerabilities with that type of device. I’m going to try and ask the forum moderators if the relevant articles can be updated to reflect this.

To me, it sounds like the only fix would be to replace the meters with SMETS2. OVO’s policy is that they will try to get the existing kit back online if possible, but as you have SMETS1 it would rely on the meters being migrated to DCC via Enrolment & Adoption first. If the process completely fails and it becomes impossible to get the existing meters back online, OVO would offer to replace them with SMETS2 for free - and chances are they’d use the new Dual-Band Comms Hub to eliminate range issues. OVO has installed a bunch of them already and they work brilliantly, but not all suppliers have them yet and they only work for SMETS2 meters.