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New to OVO, either my Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN) or my Meter Serial Number (MSN) is wrong on ECOES?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 13, 2021
29 replies
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Good afternoon all,

I’m after any advice on a very frustrating issue we’re having since moving in to our new home in January. I have spoken with the Ovo helpline 3 times now and keep getting nowhere (helpline directs me to email, email directs me to helpline and on and on on etc!).

Our home has an MPAN number which corresponds with the name of the property. I’ve triple checked this with UK power networks. The name of the property is the same as the Royal Mail database, the title deeds to the house and the local council reference.

It appears however that our meter serial number does not match with this MPAN, and is linked to another property name. We have spoken with neighbours, and there appears to be no house in the area by the name linked to our meter S/N, or certainly hasn’t been for 20+ years. The meter is a smart meter fitted in circa 2017, so it cannot be that old!

The MPAN for our house is 100% previously supplied by Ovo - again I’ve triple checked the details with UK PN. So I’m guessing at this point that either:

the MPAN database is incorrect, or;
the serial number held by Ovo is incorrect for our meter

I’ve been through this conversation a few times with the helpline and never get anywhere. Does anyone have any tips as to how to progress?

Thanks so much for any help,

Chris

Best answer by Blastoise186

Updated on 15/07/25 by Ben_OVO

If you believe your meter details are incorrect on the national database, the best place to start is by checking your statements to find the meter details listed on your statement and reaching out to customer support. They may require a photo of your meter. These similar topics may be helpful:

That’s really strange and is supposed to be almost impossible. It sounds to me as if the records on the national electricity meter database ECOES need to be fixed. It’s shared between all suppliers and a few other trusted parties and is supposed to keep a record of all the meters you’ve ever had - including the serial numbers. I can’t access ECOES or your account with OVO myself and this forum can’t be used to share personal info, but this is something that definitely needs to be fixed, otherwise it will cause things to get worse.

Could you double check that the right serial number is listed in MyOVO? If the right one shows up there (your MPAN and Meter Serial Number should also be on your bills), it might just be a case of getting your ECOES record updated with the correct details based on what OVO has.

If they don’t match up however, this may need further investigation. I’ll see if I can ask @Tim_OVO for help with this. If you do contact the Support Team again, I’d definitely recommend going in via Live Chat or Phone via https://help.ovoenergy.com.

If you keep getting stumped though, definitely give us a shout here again. We don’t give up easily!

Have just had a long online chat session with Ovo using the info provided. For the record Asta was absolutely superb. Turns out that the MPANs for us and the new build next door were all completely messed up. Ovo supply next door and have just updated the ECOES database as their second supply to a garage had been registered incorrectly a few years back. I’ve now identified the MPAN we are served from with another provider which is under a totally incorrect name. They are updating that one on ECOES to the proper address.

I will then 100% be switching to Ovo - the customer service has been excellent!

Thanks for your help.

Blastoise186

Solved

Super User

Updated on 15/07/25 by Ben_OVO

If you believe your meter details are incorrect on the national database, the best place to start is by checking your statements to find the meter details listed on your statement and reaching out to customer support. They may require a photo of your meter. These similar topics may be helpful:

That’s really strange and is supposed to be almost impossible. It sounds to me as if the records on the national electricity meter database ECOES need to be fixed. It’s shared between all suppliers and a few other trusted parties and is supposed to keep a record of all the meters you’ve ever had - including the serial numbers. I can’t access ECOES or your account with OVO myself and this forum can’t be used to share personal info, but this is something that definitely needs to be fixed, otherwise it will cause things to get worse.

Could you double check that the right serial number is listed in MyOVO? If the right one shows up there (your MPAN and Meter Serial Number should also be on your bills), it might just be a case of getting your ECOES record updated with the correct details based on what OVO has.

If they don’t match up however, this may need further investigation. I’ll see if I can ask @Tim_OVO for help with this. If you do contact the Support Team again, I’d definitely recommend going in via Live Chat or Phone via https://help.ovoenergy.com.

If you keep getting stumped though, definitely give us a shout here again. We don’t give up easily!

Have just had a long online chat session with Ovo using the info provided. For the record Asta was absolutely superb. Turns out that the MPANs for us and the new build next door were all completely messed up. Ovo supply next door and have just updated the ECOES database as their second supply to a garage had been registered incorrectly a few years back. I’ve now identified the MPAN we are served from with another provider which is under a totally incorrect name. They are updating that one on ECOES to the proper address.

I will then 100% be switching to Ovo - the customer service has been excellent!

Thanks for your help.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way! Remember, I'm just like you - AI Powered Evil Geniuses aren't Staff!

A

AC in SC

Newcomer

Our house was built in 2016 and the electricity supply was with Eon, we changed to Ovo without a problem. In 2020 I tried to swap both gas and electricity to octopus, and the gas supply swapped but the electricity failed due to a discrepancy picked up with the MPAN. Basically the MPAN labelled on my meter is down as the the house next door. Ovo won’t change 52 to 51 on ECOES, nor will Eon, and the Ombudsman have since stopped communicating with me. I would like to sell the house next year but I think this is going to create issues!!

Any advice??

Emmanuelle_OVO

Retired Moderator

Hey @AC in SC,

Sorry for the issues you’ve had.

It won’t affect you selling the property, but may cause issues for the new owners if they decide to switch in future. It sounds like you are dealing either with ‘crossed meters’ or an Erroneous Transfer.

What are crossed meters?

Crossed meters occur when the meter serial number (MSN) for one property is incorrectly registered against an meter point administration number (MPAN) for a different property.

Usually the process for identifying a crossed meter would be to ask the customer to send in photos, perform a kettle test and burns test (if the customer has gas)

How to perform a kettle test

It is important that this test is done during a quiet point of the day so that other homes don’t interfere with the results.

Take a meter reading from all electricity meters in the area.
Boil the kettle 3 - 4 times.
One of the meters should clock a lot quicker than the others and this would show that this is your meter.

How to perform a burns test

It is important that this test is done during a quiet point of the day so that other homes don’t interfere with the results.

Make sure all gas meter appliances are off and the meter stops clocking.
Turn on your gas appliances and check that the meter starts clocking again.
Turn off your gas appliances again and check the meter stops clocking again.
If the meter remains on and off as expected, then we can confirm that that meter supplies your home.

What is a fuse finder test?

An engineer will attend with a piece of equipment that allows them to trace the origin of power from any point in your home.

This test allows us to confirm which MSN supplies your property. These tests can be used to help find the correct details in the case of a crossed meter, and can also be used in some Erroneous Transfer situations.

If you think the issue might be crossed meters and you haven’t completed the above I would advise doing so.

Hope this helps.

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

A

AC in SC

Newcomer

Hi

Do you know why the ECOES cannot be amended?

Emmanuelle_OVO

Retired Moderator

Hey @AC in SC,

Thanks for your response.

Ecoes is the national database for electricity. If an address is listed incorrectly, or a MSN hasn’t been updated or is incorrect, it can be amended. It sounds like you may have an issue that is account specific which is preventing this from happening.

This similar thread might be helpful to you:

Hope this helps.

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

G

Gritz

Newcomer

I have just moved over to OVO from SSE.

My daily usage on SSE had more than tripled since the start of January, I have been told by my building that SSE have not updated to the newest MPan numbers so meters in our building are being mixed up.

This was confirmed when I did two burns tests and they showed no change in usage on the app.

I spoke with SSE at the end of january and was told nothign can be done as my account is in migration but it will all be resolved when moving over and I will not be charged until march so the high usage shouldnt matter.

This was not true as I was charged a bill from SSE when my account migrated and the issue still seems to be present as the usage on OVO is showing just as high as before.

What can be done about being overcharged for the final bill from SSE and can this be reverted if the issue with the MPAN is resolved by OVO?

I can no longer see my old usage on my SSE account nor on the OVO account.

G

Gritz

Newcomer

How about the issue with the final bill from SSE, is this something that can be resolved from OVO as theyre one in the same now?

BPLightlog

Super User

From what we’ve seen elsewhere I’m not sure about that. Accounting is quite separate

Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}

Tim_OVO

OVO Forum Legend

It’s a complicated one, @Gritz but we can certainly make sure you’re not overcharged.

If your old provider has billed you to the usage of the wrong meter (through no fault of their own I might add), then the readings are wrong from whenever that mistake happened. We would fix the confusion and monitor your usage to work out the recalculated usage. Then make lots of changes behind the scenes to make sure your charges weren’t inflated since the mistake happened.

I’d recommend getting an update from the OVO Support team for now to make sure the process is in motion.

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6

S

Speff

Newcomer

Hi, folks. Old SSE/new OVO customer here. A story in 3 parts:

1. Managed finally to get my online account set up through the Chat function, but our address was completely wrong.

2. Phoned the support line yesterday, and a very nice adviser promised it would be sorted out. Not yet done so, but accept it is still early doors.

3. However, on doing a meter reading (we still have the old style dual electricity/heating meter) we discovered that the serial number...drum roll...is also completely wrong!! So, I don't know whether we have been billed for or paying the electricity for Prestwick Community Hall, or vice versa!!

Any help, including who to email, would be useful.

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New to OVO, either my Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN) or my Meter Serial Number (MSN) is wrong on ECOES?