Meter installation issue- not commissioned

It takes up to six weeks for a newly installed Smart Meter to fully commission - Smart readings might not show up during the process until the meter is ready.

As for the estimates? If you rarely submit readings, it makes it harder for OVO - and the industry as a whole - to get reasonable guesses. Estimates should never be relied on - there’s a 100% chance they’ll be wrong no matter who your supplier is.

Thanks, but if you read above you’ll see that it was not commissioned at all as there is no WAN signal here. I have to wait until Arqiva improve their coverage. My queries regarding the account updating are related to the meter number only, I know full well that I will not be able to have smart readings for some time (months/years) but I cannot even submit a manual reading until that happens.

I agree that estimates are never going to be 100% correct, my question was more to do with why they’re three times higher than the established usage pattern which the previous working smart meter gave them data for.

In short - OVO know I use about 4-5 kWh per day but their system is estimating my usage at three times that. 

This is not uncommon. Apparently, when a meter is replaced (the technical term is Meter Exchange, commonly referred to as MEX), historical data from the same supply point are disregarded for some purposes, like estimates of usage. Instead, OVO seem to use an ‘industry average’ which may well be very different from what the actual usage has been. It shouldn’t matter too much, depending on how you pay. If you pay by Direct Debit, you may find that it’s set far too high because of this disregard for historical data. That should only last a couple of months, though, at which point it will be reviewed. Any credit you build up would come in handy to cover high winter bills.

Be sure to take regular meter readings - weekly is not too often - and keep a record of them safe, perhaps with a photo to back them up every month. Evidence like this is vital when doing battle with the DD SS, which you sadly may end up having to do.

How do direct debits work | Customer Help and FAQ (ovoenergy.com) 

Should you end up paying too much, it will all come out in the wash once your account is up and running and you’re able to submit regular readings. It’s best to submit them in the morning of the first day of your billing period; that way, you’ll get real bills with no estimates involved.

I have had some interesting correspondence with DCC today. These paragraphs particularly:

“Thank you for your email regarding the Smart Metering Wide Area Network (SM WAN) coverage to your property. 

I'm sorry but your energy supplier is correct,  our network doesn’t currently cover your postcode.

Unfortunately, around 0.7% or circa 200,000 premises nationally, fall into postcodes where it wasn’t viable to provide coverage because of topography or low population density. These postcodes were identified when the network was designed and built some 10 years ago.”

So the obvious question is - if my postcode is in a dead spot which has been known for 10 years then why did OVO install a meter that they knew would not work?

Apparently a 4G solution is being tested for deployment in 2025 so I would hope I would be a priority for this. 

“...would not work” isn’t strictly true. It’s a meter’s job to measure, and this is what your new meter will do. What it can’t do, even though it was designed to, is send its measurements automatically to your supplier, so you’ll have to do that yourself until it can. So it is working, but just not with all the advanced functions. You are no worse off than before.

4G is coming soon - I can confirm that. Please watch the Forum for updates.

Even if the meter can’t connect, sometimes the swap just has to happen anyway due to the old one being end of service life - it can always be connected later after all. The MOST critical functionality is that it can record meter readings locally, everything else is secondary.

“You are no worse off than before”

Not true, I had a working smart meter before.

I presume when 4G comes they will just be able to swap the comms module on top of the meter rather than change the whole thing out?

FWIW you’re better off with SMETS2 anyway - they’ll be far easier to upgrade to 4G than any SMETS1 unit. We’ve seen some info on how suppliers are planning to do it. Once it goes public, we’ll be able to talk about it more openly.

Long story short, yup. The comms hub can just be swapped out.

Pleased to report that the account finally updated today to show the new meter number and a zero reading on the day it was fitted. I can now put my readings in again and so will continue to do so until DCC pull their finger out and get the network functional.

OVO are still hugely over-estimating my usage but that obviously gets overwritten with actual data each time I do a reading so I’ll do it every week to minimise the risk of estimated bills. 

I’m really glad to hear that you can now submit meter readings as the online account has been updated with your new meter details @Retroanaconda. As you say, every meter reading you submit will adjust the estimates.

If you’re eligible for the Priority Services Register you can opt in to have regular meter readers attend your property.