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Smart Economy 10 - Just had new meter installed is it too early to worry if the tariffs are the right way round?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
December 13, 2024
28 replies
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We had a smart meter installed on Tuesday to replace the old THTC setup with Smart Economy 10. Everything has gone well so far - pleasant engineer, neat installation, heaters and hot water coming on at the right times, correct tariffs showing on the IHD at the correct times.

I've been waiting for the new meter to show on my account and today it popped up, though the old heating meter still shows as well, and both readings from the smart meter are currently being allocated to "anytime". I'm not too worried about that as I assume it will eventually sort itself out.

What I'm wondering about is, on the meter itself TOU rate 1 is the peak rate and TOU rate 2 is the offpeak rate. But when I go to https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/orex/api/supply-points/account/<account number> I see that Tier 1 is labelled offpeak:

"region":"_P","profileClass":"01","meterType":"S2ADE","mapId":"UPLD","lineLossFactorClassId":"100","registers":[{"tier":1,"clockingTimeId":532,"timeOfUseLabel":"offpeak","meterRegisterId":"1","timePatternRegime":532,"measurementQuantityId":"AI","switchedLoadIndicator":null,"meterRegisterMultiplier":1,"registerMappingCoefficient":"1"},{"tier":2,"clockingTimeId":533,"timeOfUseLabel":"peak","meterRegisterId":"2","timePatternRegime":533,"measurementQuantityId":"AI","switchedLoadIndicator":null,"meterRegisterMultiplier":1,"registerMappingCoefficient":"1"}],"start":"2007-12-31T00:00:00.000Z","end":null,"fuel":"Electricity","meterNoOfDigitsOrDials":5},

The readings API shows the readings for Tier 1 and Tier 2 matching what I see on the smart meter display (ie Tier 1 matches TOU Rate 1 ie peak, as it's by far the lower value):

"readingDateTime":"2024-12-13T00:00:00","readingType":"SmartReading","fuel":"electricity","tiers":[{"meterRegisterReading":16.381,"registerTier":1},{"meterRegisterReading":145.138,"registerTier":2}]},

This looks to me like I'll be billed exactly the wrong way round, when billing catches up. Or am I reading this wrong? Should I be raising this with OVO already?

I should say, thanks very much to everyone who's been contributing to the THTC/smart meter threads over the past year or so for keeping lurkers like me up to date with progress and helping us understand the process better!

Best answer by Firedog

What I'm wondering about is, on the meter itself TOU rate 1 is the peak rate and TOU rate 2 is the offpeak rate. But when I go to https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/orex/api/supply-points/account/<account number> I see that Tier 1 is labelled offpeak:
...

"profileClass":"01" … "timePatternRegime":532,

Since your meter is only a few days old, I shouldn’t take much notice of what you see in these various API results. It will take some time for everything to fall into place. In particular, the ‘supply points’ result is primarily for billing, not metering. It’s updated infrequently and it’s likely to change over the next few weeks, so you can’t take it (yet) as a true indication of your meter’s configuration. I’d point out, for example, that TPR 532 is half of SSC 510 (533 is the other half), and that SSC is supposedly only for PC 02 (multi-rate meters). So take it all with a large pinch of salt for the time being.

You showed us a bit of the API’s meter readings result. What do you see on the website’s readings history page? That should (eventually) indicate whether your readings are being recorded the right way round. Here are my latest ones:

So, don’t start panicking yet - it’s still very early days.

TPR 532 has offpeak times 04:30-0730, 13:30-16:30 and 20:30-00:30 as you were expecting. We were once led to believe that DCC didn’t like getting offpeak register readings as Tier 1, but that restriction may have been removed. If your readings are showing the right way round (i.e. the reading labelled Peak is the one you see on your meter for peak-time usage), you seem to be good to go.

Please keep us posted how it all progresses!

Show previous replies

I

Infiltrator

Rank 6

I thought I'd give a final update on this thread, now that it's been sorted.

The billing discrepancy that had been noticed by OVO (which was why the billing was on hold) was a historical issue from a couple of years ago which I think affected a lot of people? We received a letter saying we owed something but that due to back billing rules we weren't being charged. At that point the billing was taken off hold and the bills continued to be wrong.

It's taken several chats, phone calls and emails, and unfortunately in the end a few emails to the Complaints address as we weren't getting any response or follow up as promised, but someone called Nathan phoned today to say he'd sorted the problem and the bills now look a lot better!

So in this case, the smart meter has been doing the right thing all along and correctly tagging the 2 readings right from the start, which is great, and they are showing the right way round on the meter readings page. Unfortunately the billing system was then misattributing these readings to the wrong rates.

Ah well, it's all sorted now. Just in time for us to get a heat pump installed in a couple of months' time and then I'll need to see if we can move tariffs to a single rate one... 😊

When you say 'final update'

I had a smart meter installed end August last year and installed an air to air heat pump, my account had a billing hold placed on it to review 57 periods, mostly I believe related to the smart meter settling down in the first few weeks, I've been calling every 2 weeks for an update and they seemed to resolve most of the issues except the last two. It's been stuck like this now for the last couple of months and they admitted they had no-one assigned to resolve this. I really despair with the back office OVO support. I thought I was at the final update point a couple of months ago!

I'm just frustrated as part of my masterplan was to escape THTC and get a standard meter setup allowing me to move supplier smoothly should I wish, but I wouldn't even consider doing this with this billing hold sat on my account - it might be possible, but if I'm changing supplier I want it to be a clean break, and definitely no lingering issues back to the OVO billing dept.

Emmanuelle_OVO

Retired Moderator

I’m really sorry to hear this @Infiltrator, how frustrating. It might be worth raising a complaint if you haven’t already. We don’t have access to customer accounts on the forum so I’m not able to give an update on your account issues unfortunately.

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

I

Infiltrator

Rank 6

Thanks @Emmanuelle_OVO but if I raised another complaint this would be the 3rd, every time I call, the advisor is always surprised that no one has called me to give me an update. Like I said, I despair. I started my quest to get away from THTC just over a year ago, it's been a journey, and I'm just glad it's almost over!

Emmanuelle_OVO

Retired Moderator

Hey @Infiltrator

I completely understand your frustration.

If your complaint has taken over 8 weeks to be resolved, you can speak to the Energy Ombudsman. You can also speak to them if you’re unhappy with our actions or if we’ve written to you with a final decision that you disagree with. This is called a “deadlock” letter.

The Energy Ombudsman gives a free, independent service. They’ll review what’s happened so far, and how we’ve handled your complaint. Then they’ll decide if we should have done more – and what we need to do to put it right.

How to contact the Energy Ombudsman

Call

0330 440 1624
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Email

enquiry@energyombudsman.org

Website

www.energyombudsman.org

Post

Energy Ombudsman, PO Box 966, Warrington WA4 9DF.

Please keep us posted with how your situation progresses.

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

I

Infiltrator

Rank 6

Hey @Infiltrator

I completely understand your frustration.

If your complaint has taken over 8 weeks to be resolved, you can speak to the Energy Ombudsman. You can also speak to them if you’re unhappy with our actions or if we’ve written to you with a final decision that you disagree with. This is called a “deadlock” letter.

The Energy Ombudsman gives a free, independent service. They’ll review what’s happened so far, and how we’ve handled your complaint. Then they’ll decide if we should have done more – and what we need to do to put it right.

How to contact the Energy Ombudsman

Call

0330 440 1624
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Email

enquiry@energyombudsman.org

Website

www.energyombudsman.org

Post

Energy Ombudsman, PO Box 966, Warrington WA4 9DF.

Please keep us posted with how your situation progresses.

Thanks @Emmanuelle_OVO , I started this whole journey to escape THTC with an ombudsman case, last March OVO couldn't tell me how to leave THTC to allow me to install a modern heating system to heat the house more efficiently. I was successful, and the timing of the introduction of the new smart meters meant I was an early adopter of the tech and the tech side went well. Since then it's just been downhill with OVO back office, I'm not going to bother the ombudsman with this minor issue, not yet anyway!

Emmanuelle_OVO

Retired Moderator

Okay @Infiltrator, please keep us posted with how your situation evolves,

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

I

Infiltrator

Rank 6

Okay @Infiltrator, please keep us posted with how your situation evolves,

@Emmanuelle_OVO just called for my fortnightly progress check and its now all completed as of 4th Apr, small account credit adjustment was all that was needed!

No more billing hold on my account! Its taken just over a year to fully escape THTC 😀 I always knew it wouldn’t be straightforward but didn’t expect it to be the billing stuff that would drag my release out this long 🙄

Emmanuelle_OVO

Retired Moderator

Brilliant news @Infiltrator! Thanks for keeping us posted 😃

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.

Smart Economy 10 - Just had new meter installed is it too early to worry if the tariffs are the right way round?

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