How to work my newly fitted Smart Meter on Economy 7

Afternoon ​@kbultray ,

I can help you figure that out, but I need to know what you’ve got first. Please post photos of your meter in your next reply and I’ll take a look.

Thanks!

A smart meter will have separate registers ​@kbultray so you will be able to view peak and off peak usage once you get familiar with the menu. Depending on the model you have, they can also indicate which register is in current use

Thanks!

For that meter, ToU 1 is Night/Off-Peak while ToU 2 is Day/Peak if memory serves.

TOU Rate 1 ought to be the Day (peak) rate. There was some evidence that DCC doesn’t like data from systems where the lowest register isn’t peak/anytime. To check, sometime tomorrow note the TOU Rate 1 and 2 meter readings. Boil the kettle a couple of times, then check the readings again an hour later. Only one of them should have increased - that’s the Day register.

There may be a screen on the button B menu showing Active TOU Number, i.e. 1 or 2. Your button doesn’t appear to be sealed; just rotate it clockwise if it doesn’t respond to presses.

That said, it would be more normal for an Economy 7 system to be fitted with a five-wire meter (yours only has four connected to the bottom of it). One of the wires would then deliver power to storage and water heaters only during offpeak periods. That doesn’t matter if you have robust time switches elsewhere to control the heaters. Just beware that the offpeak tariff will change a few minutes (often around 10, but theoretically up to 30) after the nominal switching time. You may have to keep an eagle eye on that Active TOU Number screen from the start of the E7 offpeak period an make a note of when it changes from 1 to 2. Then adjust the time switches on your heating equipment to suit so they don’t start drawing power before the cheap rate starts.

If you told us where you live (the first part of the postcode is enough), we should be able to say what the nominal E7 offpeak hours are. 
 

[Last - next time someone asks for a picture of your meter, please touch button A first to light up the screen 🙂 ]

Thank you Firedog, I made a point of asking the technician re;  times. He assured me it is 00.30 - 07.30  for off-peak.

Cannot for the life of me understand why OvO should install such equipment without any guidance, Progress........Pah !

OK, thanks. That puts you, I think, in Kent or Sussex. It means you’ll have to squat in front of the meter from half-past midnight tonight until the Active TOU Number changes from 1 to 2, then write the exact time down somewhere. Suppliers used to put a helpful sticker on the meter itself giving the nominal timings. That’s not a bad idea, except you could post the actual timings, useful for you and whoever else moves in when you eventually move out.   
  

Firedog, I was given no instructions re;  Buttons to press or turn on the actual meter. 
As you can see there’s a blue A button. and an orange B button. Underneath there’s a cacophony of  letters and symbols which mean nothing to the customer.

Please can you enlighten me?

Oh by the way my postal code is LN6

To get the readings you’re after, you only need the blue A button (the orange B button reveals more technical stuff). You can ignore basically everything else - that’s there for legal/statutory/regulatory reasons.

Did you get an IHD when the meter was installed? Did the engineer explain how to use it? And is it working as expected? The IHD will give you most of the information you might need day-to-day.

As regards no instructions: ​@BPLightlog did mention that ‘pressing button A cycles through the registers’, as well as giving you a couple of handy links to further information about the meter. There’s a wealth of information here, for example:

OVO SMETS2 smart meter In Home Displays (IHD) - Guide
Smart meter guide for Aclara, Honeywell, Flonidan second generation smart meters

Both on this consolidated list:
Smart Meters and In Home Displays - Topic Hub

And, if you’re really interested, the 100-page, 4.5MB technical manual is available here: Aclara-SMETS2-Single-Phase-Electric.pdf  

Often the search bar at the top of this page will turn up the information you’re looking for. Otherwise, there are plenty of people in this forum willing to help with any questions you can’t find the answers to.
 

That had me stumped for the first time, I’m afraid. There are clearly a lot of properties in that area whose network operator (DNO) isn’t the one I’d expect it to be. If your house was, like mine, served by National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED East), your Economy 7 timings would be the same as mine (offpeak 00:00-07:00). If on the other hand you’re on an independent network, you may have to trust to what the engineer told you, because I don’t have access to the independent networks’ information. Do you happen to know who your DNO is? This page should help you find out: Who’s my electricity network operator?.

[Each DNO has an agreement with each supplier in its area to supply electricity on specific terms, like when the customer can draw power at cheaper rates overnight. That’s why it’s often a bit convoluted to find out just what timings apply to a particular supply.]