Hi all,
This is more of an informative post in the hopes it may help other people on Economy 10 and considering the change to a Smart Meter. Apologies long post ahead!
Just to give a bit of background as we have avoided changing to a Smart Meter due to issues initially encountered when moving into our rented property back in 2013.
It seems in 2013 I couldn't find very much out about an Economy 10 setup, other than a few select providers, it took a few years of research! We chose to set up an Electricity account with Npower as in our old flat this is whom we used.
We are in the East of England and our Economy 10 charging hours are as follows:
00:00-05:00
13:00-16:00
20:00-22:00
(changes by 1 hour when the clock changes)
This automatically switches our Off Peak rate over to charge Storage Heaters and heat our Water.
All was seemingly fine for a few weeks, until we started noticing issues with our bills. Essentially we were being billed Zero. We then received a letter from British Gas thanking us for setting up an account, addressed to 'The Occupier'. This is where things get stressful!
We ended up being 'piggy in the middle' of Npower and British Gas. Somehow the previous tenant had tried to change Energy Provider and managed to split the meter. After digging in to it some more, there were 2 MPAN numbers assigned to the meter. Npower had one and British Gas had the other. Neither could bill us properly. We were told it was a very unique and rare situation that nobody had experienced before!
Eventually after several months, the solution was to choose a new provider and have them transfer both MPANs over and bring them back together. I think at this point the meter also had an RTS teleswitch.
This leads us to E.ON and a huge relief once the MPANS were back with one supplier. This is the short version, it did end up going to the Ombudsman.
In 2016 the meter was replaced - again reluctantly due to end of life.
E.ON has been contacting us about fitting a Smart Meter for the last few years and then in the last couple of years we started hearing about RTS being switched off.
This prompted us to book in a Smart Meter upgrade - all relatively easy and booked via the app.
We had a phone call from a 3rd party 'First Source Ltd' on behalf of E.ON and I raised the query to confirm the Smart Meter would be compatible. I was told yes. My research online told a different story so both my husband and myself were anxious about it breaking!
The installer turned up first thing on the day - we were supposed to receive a call/notification when they were on the way. Turns out as we were first, they have recently deployed an AI tool to assign their jobs and now they don't receive them the night before, they receive them from 7am in the morning, so they head straight out on the road. Quite why this meant they couldn't call is beyond me?
Really pleasant and friendly installer. We queried our setup and whether it would be compatible and he assured us it would, its based on the tariff we are on. We also queried the RTS teleswitch - our meter didn't have one as it was all built in, so really we didn't have to have a Smart Meter yet if we didn't want one. Both my Husband and I agreed that as they were there and it was compatible to go ahead.
It was fitted very quickly within an hour and I think the electric was only off for 15-20 mins tops.
The In-House display was turned on and configured and we were shown how to use it. I was also told our online account would take up to 72 hours to update.
The problem started when we reached the first charging period after install which was 13:00-16:00. The IHD had a countdown showing the tariff rate change and I could see the rate go down to off peak. However, the Smart Meter didn't turn on the power to the Off-peak circuit so therefore our heaters didn't charge and our water wasn't being heated.
The second charging period came around 20:00-22:00 - still no off peak switch over. Its usually audible by a clunk or click.
I tried calling E.ON and they were closed! So I gave the out of hours number a call - is no heating and hot water an emergency in the middle of Winter? I spoke to a customer service rep (whose Name I do know but won't be posting) unfortunately not knowledgeable at all with Economy 10 and seemed to suggest we shouldn't have been fitted with a Smart Meter and also started referring to Economy 7. They tried to get through to the Metering team apparently, but they were also closed. It was agreed they would call me back the next day. They did not! Very frustrating as I don't think they should be making promises they do not intend to keep. More likely they just wanted me off the phone.
However... at 12 midnight the next charging period kicked in and we heard our water starting to heat and the storage heaters started to also charge! Hurrah!
I think what is likely to have happened is that there was a delay in the meter downloading its configuration, so it didn't actually know to switch on during the charging periods and was at odds with the IHD.
I feel like although Economy 10 is rare these days, they still fit these meters and should point out it might take a while to download configurations and as a result you could miss some charging periods. This would then have alleviated the stress we had thinking we had been mis-lead.
So to summarise, Smart Meters do work with Economy 10 on E.ON. If it's helpful the installer told us it is a 5 terminal meter (the 5th terminal controlling the off peak)
Thank you for reading and I hope this is useful :)
This is more of an informative post in the hopes it may help other people on Economy 10 and considering the change to a Smart Meter. Apologies long post ahead!
Just to give a bit of background as we have avoided changing to a Smart Meter due to issues initially encountered when moving into our rented property back in 2013.
It seems in 2013 I couldn't find very much out about an Economy 10 setup, other than a few select providers, it took a few years of research! We chose to set up an Electricity account with Npower as in our old flat this is whom we used.
We are in the East of England and our Economy 10 charging hours are as follows:
00:00-05:00
13:00-16:00
20:00-22:00
(changes by 1 hour when the clock changes)
This automatically switches our Off Peak rate over to charge Storage Heaters and heat our Water.
All was seemingly fine for a few weeks, until we started noticing issues with our bills. Essentially we were being billed Zero. We then received a letter from British Gas thanking us for setting up an account, addressed to 'The Occupier'. This is where things get stressful!
We ended up being 'piggy in the middle' of Npower and British Gas. Somehow the previous tenant had tried to change Energy Provider and managed to split the meter. After digging in to it some more, there were 2 MPAN numbers assigned to the meter. Npower had one and British Gas had the other. Neither could bill us properly. We were told it was a very unique and rare situation that nobody had experienced before!
Eventually after several months, the solution was to choose a new provider and have them transfer both MPANs over and bring them back together. I think at this point the meter also had an RTS teleswitch.
This leads us to E.ON and a huge relief once the MPANS were back with one supplier. This is the short version, it did end up going to the Ombudsman.
In 2016 the meter was replaced - again reluctantly due to end of life.
E.ON has been contacting us about fitting a Smart Meter for the last few years and then in the last couple of years we started hearing about RTS being switched off.
This prompted us to book in a Smart Meter upgrade - all relatively easy and booked via the app.
We had a phone call from a 3rd party 'First Source Ltd' on behalf of E.ON and I raised the query to confirm the Smart Meter would be compatible. I was told yes. My research online told a different story so both my husband and myself were anxious about it breaking!
The installer turned up first thing on the day - we were supposed to receive a call/notification when they were on the way. Turns out as we were first, they have recently deployed an AI tool to assign their jobs and now they don't receive them the night before, they receive them from 7am in the morning, so they head straight out on the road. Quite why this meant they couldn't call is beyond me?
Really pleasant and friendly installer. We queried our setup and whether it would be compatible and he assured us it would, its based on the tariff we are on. We also queried the RTS teleswitch - our meter didn't have one as it was all built in, so really we didn't have to have a Smart Meter yet if we didn't want one. Both my Husband and I agreed that as they were there and it was compatible to go ahead.
It was fitted very quickly within an hour and I think the electric was only off for 15-20 mins tops.
The In-House display was turned on and configured and we were shown how to use it. I was also told our online account would take up to 72 hours to update.
The problem started when we reached the first charging period after install which was 13:00-16:00. The IHD had a countdown showing the tariff rate change and I could see the rate go down to off peak. However, the Smart Meter didn't turn on the power to the Off-peak circuit so therefore our heaters didn't charge and our water wasn't being heated.
The second charging period came around 20:00-22:00 - still no off peak switch over. Its usually audible by a clunk or click.
I tried calling E.ON and they were closed! So I gave the out of hours number a call - is no heating and hot water an emergency in the middle of Winter? I spoke to a customer service rep (whose Name I do know but won't be posting) unfortunately not knowledgeable at all with Economy 10 and seemed to suggest we shouldn't have been fitted with a Smart Meter and also started referring to Economy 7. They tried to get through to the Metering team apparently, but they were also closed. It was agreed they would call me back the next day. They did not! Very frustrating as I don't think they should be making promises they do not intend to keep. More likely they just wanted me off the phone.
However... at 12 midnight the next charging period kicked in and we heard our water starting to heat and the storage heaters started to also charge! Hurrah!
I think what is likely to have happened is that there was a delay in the meter downloading its configuration, so it didn't actually know to switch on during the charging periods and was at odds with the IHD.
I feel like although Economy 10 is rare these days, they still fit these meters and should point out it might take a while to download configurations and as a result you could miss some charging periods. This would then have alleviated the stress we had thinking we had been mis-lead.
So to summarise, Smart Meters do work with Economy 10 on E.ON. If it's helpful the installer told us it is a 5 terminal meter (the 5th terminal controlling the off peak)
Thank you for reading and I hope this is useful :)
