Updated on 07/03/25 by Chris_OVO
It doesn’t seem fair that people are missing out because of the smart meters not working properly, after all, that is not the customers fault. Should OVO not be replacing these meters if they are not functioning properly?
It’s not usually a case of the meters not functioning properly. I’ve heard that there are two main reasons why you get a message saying something like “your smart meter failed to send us readings at certain times, so we couldn’t see the full picture of your electricity use:”
- Missing half-hour data. If there is even a single half-hour’s figure missing from a weekday’s data, the day will be disregarded by Power Move. There must be exactly 48 figures for the day.
- Data arriving late. Until recently, there was a cut-off time - 13:00. If the usage data for a weekday hadn’t arrived in your account by this time the following day, the day was disregarded. The PM team were looking at delaying the cut-off point, but I don’t know whether they did or not.
There might be many reasons why either of these faults arises, for example spotty communication with your meter, congestion in and out of the DCC or a power outage at your house. None of these does OVO have any control over. If the number of working days in the month less the number of disregarded ones is below 14, there will sadly be no reward.
