If I switch to OVO, can my Honeywell AS300P (SMETS1) smart meter be changed from single rate to Economy 7 tariff remotely?

Hey there @bojack10 !

I have some good news for you actually. Firstly, yup you can definitely have OVO reconfigure your smart meter into Economy 7 mode if you’d like to and it can be done remotely - simply make sure to request Economy 7 on the Quote and Switch tool and you’ll be able to access the E7 versions of all tariffs. Don’t worry if you forget, this can be done later over the phone to the Support Team as well. Likewise, you can also have it switched back in the other direction if desired.

As for S1 > S2 upgrades, yup OVO does offer this via the national firmware upgrade and migration process for S1 meters. This doesn’t require the meter to be replaced and is done remotely. We’ve got more info over in our guide at 

• National enrolment and adoption (E & A) of SMETS1 smart meters onto the Data Communications Company (DCC) - Your Guide F.A.Q.

However, your smart meter might already be S2 anyway. If you’d like me to, I can identify it for you. Please could you snap some photos of your meters and pop them in your next reply. We’ll be more than happy to confirm what you’ve got completely free of charge. :)

If there’s anything else I can help with, feel free to let me know.

Welcome @bojack10 and thanks for asking a great and very well explained question!

Our community volunteer @Blastoise186 has already linked to a great topic which should answer your second question there - All S1 meters are currently undergoing an upgrade to S2 functionality. As you’ve got a Honeywell (also known as Elster) S1 meter this should be completed by October 2021.

Unfortunately a change from single rate to dual rate isn’t quite so simple at the moment. In order to switch to OVO on an Economy 7 plan, your meter would need to be in dual-rate mode before you applied to switch. It might be worth speaking to your current supplier to ask if they can change your meter mode and profile class (this is the way your supply is listed on the national database and indicates whether you have a single or dual rate meter) before checking out the Economy 7 plans we offer. As we wouldn’t be able to communicate with your meter until it gains S2 functionality, we’d be unable to change the meter mode after a switch so would only be able to offer you a single rate plan currently.

Hope this helps explain things. Let us know how you get on...

Thank you both for the replies.

If switching directly to OVO on an E7 tariff isn’t possible, then would it be possible to switch to a standard single rate tariff first and then have OVO reconfigure my meter remotely for E7?

My current supplier is Scottish Power and they have been utterly hopeless at dealing with enquiries, so I would really prefer to avoid involving them if possible.

No worries @bojack10 ! I’m glad we can help. I always like to make sure you have all the info you need and could ever want before you make a decision. After all, we’d much rather give you the chance to make a truly informed decision and we like to be completely transparent upfront wherever possible. So much so in fact, that we actually have another volunteer called @Transparent ! 

As far as I know, yup this should be possible but it would require a change in the contract mid-term which may incur a fee. It probably won’t be more than the exit fee at most however. But assuming your meter can be upgraded by the end of October and on the basis that your Storage Heaters probably won’t be running during the Summer anyway, I’d say your best bet is definitely make use of Single-Rate for now while your meter is upgraded and then activate Economy 7 once your meter is ready. OVO will be able to do this and you won’t need to fiddle with Scottish Power. The other bonus is that you’d also be able to get help from volunteers like myself right here with some extra stuff that is only possible if you’re with OVO - but we welcome everyone anyway and will always do our best to help regardless of who you’re with.

I also have more good news too. If you do choose to switch to OVO, you will NOT need to notify Scottish Power of your decision to leave. OVO will be more than happy to do that on your behalf and you’ll simply need to carry on paying off the bills with Scottish Power in the meantime - along with settling the Final Bill from them once that comes through. That should be possible via self-service at least, so you won’t need to speak to them.

I don’t do affiliate or referral code stuff because I prefer to play nice, so the link I provided earlier is just the regular one that won’t result in me getting any kind of kickback or commissions.

If there’s anything else though, feel free to stop by anytime. We’ll be here if you need us!

So if I understand correctly, OVO can only interface with my smart meter once it’s been upgraded to S2 status, and this probably won’t happen until around October 2021. Is that right?

Scottish Power are actually not my original supplier, either. When I moved in, the property was supplied by Octopus Energy (and maybe others prior to that) and I switched to Scottish Power, ironically because they were one of the few suppliers who had E7 tariffs. 

Does this mean that Scottish Power also won’t be able to change my meter remotely?

It’s all a bit confusing - all I want is to have a dual rate meter again like I had at my previous property 

Yes, that’s true, but it may depend on a few factors too. I can understand why it’s a bit confusing, which is why we specialise in puzzle solving these things for free.

I’m not sure which meters Scottish Power went with in the S1 days. Please leave that with me and I’ll try to look that up. I think they used Elster/Honeywell, but I can’t say for sure.

Some S1 meters will work fine with OVO in the meantime. Most of these would be Secure branded meters, but there’s a small chance that a few others might also work. I can play a Joker Card here for this exact purpose.

I can definitely see if Tim or Jess can do an ECOES Lookup for your meter to find out for sure whether it was installed as an S1 or S2 and I think ECOES might also show the current status too. If you’re cool with showing us some photos of your meters, we’ll be happy to help with that. If you’d prefer not to post photos publicly on the forum, that’s cool too. If you’d rather keep them private, feel free to pop them in an email to forum@ovoenergy.com and Tim or Jess will pick it up from there. This email address is only accessible to the Community Moderators.

If you’d like to, an ECOES Lookup can also reveal which supplier installed the current and previous meters, along with a full supplier history - there’s no charge for this. However, since it’s kinda private data, the results wouldn’t be posted here on the forum for privacy reasons. If you’d like Tim or Jess to see if they can do this, they’d need your consent first.

I hope you’re OK with us helping you to solve this puzzle before you make any decisions. If you need us to, we’ll be more than happy to answer all the questions you can think of, so please feel free to fire away. I promise you that no question is too big/small/simple/complex for us, if it’s related to energy stuff somehow, we’ll definitely give it a shot!

A major benefit of your Smart Meter running SMETS2 software is that it is then connected to the National Smart Meter Network. That, in turn, means that any GB Energy Supplier can send meter commands on behalf of their own customers.

For you, @bojack10 the important issue is to ensure that your Honeywell AS300P meter has been migrated to that National Network.

Next, note that there are two different concepts of having an Economy-7 tariff operating via a Smart Meter.

1: you have a 4-terminal meter with all of your house connected to the same output terminal pair. The meter simply changes the actual rate that you pay between midnight to 7am. In this scenario the ‘daytime rate’ is higher than the Standard tariff paid by other customers, so you need to do a quick bit of maths to ensure it’s worthwhile running the house on E7 at night.

2: you are provided with a 5-terminal meter. Devices such as electric heaters are wired to a separate (5th) terminal which is only ‘live’ for the hours agreed to by your Energy Supplier.

The advantage of the 5-terminal option is that it can also be activated whenever there is an excess of renewable energy in the area, rather than just during fixed hours of the night. So it has the potential to give more flexibility if your chosen Supplier actually offers a suitable tariff.

See this other Topic on 5-port meters.

Thank you both for replying again.

I’ve sent a photo of my meter to the forum email address and I’ve also sent @Blastoise186 a PM with my MPAN.

@Transparent For my purposes I only want the cheaper night rates; I don’t need an extra timed terminal for storage heaters or similar. The majority of my usage is overnight because I work nights.

Basically I’m just trying to figure out the path of least resistance from where I am now (single-rate tariff with Scottish Power) to an E7 day/night tariff. 

Yup, I can confirm it’s an S1 Meter based on the Meter Serial Number starting 17K. I don’t have the ability to run ECOES Lookups, but the MSN alone is usually good enough to identify if it’s S1 or S2. I have a policy that anything shared with me via PM won’t be made public without the consent of the other member, so you won’t need to worry there.

OVO’s tariffs are probably cheaper than Scottish Power no matter how you cut the cake and given that OVO only has three or four tariffs on offer at a time - the Economy 7 variants are more of a flag/setting on the tariff - it’s much easier to find one that will work than what you’ll find with Scottish Power.

The easiest route would probably be to switch to OVO for now and then have your meter reconfigured when you switch up the contract later once it’s ready. I’ll see if Tim and Jess can find out a few clues as to when yours might trigger that process. Might not be quite as smooth as you’d like, but if it gets the ball rolling and gets you off Scottish Power sooner rather than later, it may be worthwhile.

Actually @bojack10 I MIGHT have some good news for ya!

There’s a possible chance that your meter has already been migrated to DCC and may already be running as what I like to call SMETS1+. These are SMETS1 meters that have been upgraded to run on SMETS2 firmware and migrated to DCC to join the National Smart Meter Network. It just so happens that some of the Elster Honeywell ones were migrated in the Initial Operating Capability which was the first batch of meters to migrate. The Elster Honeywell meters that were operated by CGI Instant Energy were in that group. This first wave is basically done at this point, except for Itron meters. Itron is a different brand anyway, so this won’t affect your Elster Honeywell meter.

The second wave is the Middle Operating Capability and this includes Elster Honeywell meters operated by Morrison Data Services. My understanding is that this group is also done in terms of the Elster Honeywell meters but is still ongoing for Secure meters as these are operated by Secure Meters Group. Secure is a slight edge case in that while they are a meter manufacturer, they also offer services to suppliers where Secure would operate smart meters via their own in-house platform - but even as SMETS1 this still meant that Secure branded meters worked fine with all suppliers that went with Secure back then, including OVO. Tim and Jess can find out who the Smart Meter System Operator is/was for your meter via ECOES.

If my theory is correct and you’re already S1+ then you might be able to switch now and have OVO control your meter just like an S2. I think it’s best to see if my theory is correct first though. If it is, you might be able to get proper Economy 7 immediately. :)

If you definitely know that you’d like E7 before OVO can support it, there’s another possible route. One of the alternative methods would be to temporarily switch to a supplier that supports your current meter on a Standard Variable tariff (so you don’t get locked in), get them to switch on Economy 7 mode and then switch to OVO from there once it’s been confirmed that Economy 7 is fully activated.

Even though it might lose smart functionality temporarily, your meter would at least be in Economy 7 mode and should retain it when you switch to OVO. If you had an S1 Aclara meter, the easy answer would be to switch to SSE temporarily as I know SSE used Aclara for S1 stuff. But then again, most (if not all) Aclara meters should have already been upgraded by now, so this hack probably wouldn’t be needed for those. I can definitely say that Octopus was not one of the suppliers that used Elster as they used Secure just like OVO. I think this guide over here should help you to narrow down which suppliers definitely won’t be able to help for the time being.

However… It’s not quite as simple for Elster Honeywell meters due to the fact there were two Smart Meter System Operators for these meters and I don’t know which suppliers were served by which SMSO. But that’d make for a REALLY good tutorial idea. It’s on my list! If you can find out which SMSO serves your meter right now, you can try going with a supplier that uses that one temporarily and then use that hack to get E7 active before coming to OVO. It’s not the most elegant solution, but I hope you’re cool with this as a possible workaround.

Still, at least it’s not as bad as L+G where there’s three possible SMSO’s to juggle thanks to British Gas being annoying and spinning up their own exclusive one…

Actually… That’s a thought… If your current meter is one that’s currently operated by CGI Instant Energy or Morrison Data Services, you might get away with moving to OVO by using SSE as a temporary compatibility layer, bridge or pivot point to get your meter into E7 mode before moving over here properly. I don’t think SSE uses both of them but given that there’s a 50/50 chance of your meter being on the right SMSO anyway… That’s better than nothing. If only I could recall which ones both SSE and Scottish Power use...

So I contacted Scottish Power and because I could only speak to a standard customer service agent, they weren’t able to say with 100% certainty that they can communicate with my smart meter. When I check my online account there’s no energy usage data but the advisor did mention that it’s set to update on a monthly frequency, and I’ve only been with them for a few weeks, so that may be why.

They did say it would be a few months before they could switch my meter, as they’re only doing emergency appointments at the moment. Not sure if that includes remote re-programming of meters but they didn’t seem super knowledgeable in any case so I’m not keen on chasing the issue with them.

I’m happy to try switching to SSE if you think they could communicate with my meter. Is there a way to find out which SMSO serves me before I try that, though?

No worries. There is indeed a way to do that via an ECOES Lookup. I don’t know if Jess is able to do that for you, but Scottish Power should tell you this info as it’s the sort of thing that a customer can request. I can’t promise that this sort of hack would work, so it’s definitely a good idea to do the research first so that you don’t end up trapped.

The other option is to try to get Scottish Power to flip the switch now and then move directly to OVO. But I guess it depends on whether you can get them to listen.

I do know that my old S1 Aclara meter that SSE installed was operated by CGI Instant Energy because that was the only SMSO that S1 Aclara meters were managed with. But with two of them being involved with Elster ones, it’s a possible risk that your meter might be on a network that SSE can’t access for S1 meters. If both SSE and Scottish Power happen to use the same one, you might get lucky. But if they’re not, you may not get things working just yet.

We unfortunately can’t guarantee which other suppliers would be able to support your type of meter, @bojack10. The best course of action if you’ve found a supplier that you’d like to switch to is check with them directly that they would be able to communicate with a Honeywell S1 meter and have the facility to update it to a dual rate function once you’ve switched.

Sorry we can’t support you at the moment but thanks for sharing your query here as this may help others who find themselves in a similar position in future. 

Howdy @bojack10 !

I just noticed that it’s been a few days since we last checked in with you. How are things going now? If you still need a hand, please feel free to give us a shout. But if everything’s good now and there’s a particular comment in this thread that you think helps the most, please feel free to mark it as the Best Answer since this helps other members a lot.

And if you could share any updates too, that would be smashing.

We’ll be here if you need us!

Thanks

@Jess_OVO @Blastoise186 

Resurrecting this topic from several months ago to ask if my meter might now have had its S2 upgrade seeing as this was meant to happen in October, I think?

@Jess_OVO, I sent you my meter’s MPAN details via email on 26 May 2021 at 03:05:20 - could I please ask you to check it again, if there’s a chance?

I’m still keen to switch to OVO and/or at least have my meter changed to Economy 7.

Thank you 

Howdy @bojack10 ! Welcome back. :)

It’s good to see you again. It’s a shame I don’t have a magic tool that can query the status of Smart Meters, but unfortunately that would require me being able to access ECOES… Which I’m not able to get into as a forum volunteer. I think it’s probably security or privacy related, something along those lines. The only ECOES record I have the ability to extract data out of is the one for my own supply, since OVO is able to verify that I have permission to view that particular record.

From my understanding, your meter should now have the firmware updates that enable it to run as an S1+ and be migrated to DCC, but it requires the installing supplier to offer the meter up for adoption before it can be enrolled into DCC and made available to any supplier. I keep forgetting whether only the installing supplier can do that, or the last supplier who was able to access the meter, but whichever one it is has to do the next step.

Even if Jess can’t check your record again, you should be able to ask your current supplier to check. Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long!

Hi again @bojack10 - a Halloween resurrection was it? 

Great that you’re still keen to switch to an Economy 7 plan with OVO. Sounds like you’re still waiting for your Honeywell meter to be ‘enrolled’ (which as you mention it was scheduled to completed by October 2021). As your current supplier would let you know when the meters are completing this process, it’s worth checking in with them if you haven’t already. 

Worth bearing in mind that due to the current energy market conditions - it might not be the best time to switch right now, read more about this on our FAQs.

No pun intended but I guess it was indeed a Halloween ressurection! 

I’ll be honest: Scottish Power are pretty hopeless when it comes to anything beyond the most simplistic account query so I don’t have much faith that they’ll be able to advise about my meter. They certainly couldn’t last time, after I finally got through to them.

They’re likely not even the installing supplier; I switched to them after moving in and the meter was probably installed long before that by yet another supplier.

@Jess_OVO Can you please bottom-line this for me: is there still no way for me to switch to OVO with Economy 7?

Thank you both for the continued help.

Hmm… I see. Pretty eager then huh? In that case, I’ve got two options to recommend:

• Try to convince SP to force you onto Economy 7 and then jump ship as soon as it’s been completed and your meter is in E7 mode - OVO will then treat it as an E7
• Switch to OVO now anyway and run on single-rate for the time being. You’ll be able to  request Economy 7 once OVO is able to communicate with your meter - you’ll be notified once this is possible

And yes, I’ve heard tons of complaints regarding Scottish Power. I don’t blame you for wanting to escape them as fast as possible.