What tariff?

[HML]

[It may not be surprising, but those that have no problems may be much less likely to reporta succesful process than those who encounter various issues.

I dunno! I've been trying to find out how to resolve my issue and there are quite a few reports of problems with Octopus and smart meters. They all seem to generate a lot of replies saying "I've never had a problem, the meter was installed before I ordered it."

There are quite a lot of issues with smart meters at the moment, both installation and reading errors. Maybe 10% aren't working properly https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-67591320.

Octopus CS has been good for me up to now. There was an issue after a meter reader read the E7 meter. After the reading was submitted I got a bill reducing the credit on our account by £500 as the high and low rate readings got swapped. That was resolved reasonably promptly.

It doesn't help if you get 9 months of being blanked by them though and no viable method of resolving it.

[Pat]

My overall impression has been fairly good. The smart meter was fitted promptly with little fuss. If that's all you need then I should go ahead.

Octopus seem to have been overstretching themselves. They are not so good at slightly out of the ordinary things like export. Export doesn't seem to be on their scripts, and the smart tariff section are not allowed to talk to the public. During my months of phone calls trying to get the export transferred, I was variously given answers like "That is NOT something we do" and dropped out, or "Uh, I'll have to check" and dropped out. At the end of my 8 week mandatory calming-down period from getting a complaint number, I rang up and was told that my complaint had been resolved the day after I made it and the case closed. When a senior manager looked into it he emailed me that it was my fault for not saying the right things to OVO. When I told this to OVO they said that the issue was that Octopus hadn't told the DNO that they were responsible for my new MPAN. When I told this to an Octopus agent, the whole issue was fixed in two days. It shouldn't be this hard.

[Moxi]

Thanks all, despite my own inbuilt aversion to "smart" meters I think \I will continue with the process for the MiL so that we can try and get her a better tariff. We wont be needing to export so that might keep things a bit simpler

I will report back if and when they turn up to do the job.

Moxi

[Thebeeman]

I've found that when I'm chasing Octopus and getting nowhere if I include Greg Jackson as a copy receiver on the emails a member of his team becomes interested and things start to happen.
greg@octopus.energy

[sharpener]

Thanks all, despite my own inbuilt aversion to "smart" meters I think \I will continue with the process for the MiL so that we can try and get her a better tariff. We wont be needing to export so that might keep things a bit simpler

I will report back if and when they turn up to do the job.

Moxi

TBF their s/c fitter turned up Thurs as planned and I was switched to Cosy the next day NGED have now issued an Export MPAN as well.

[sharpener]

Octopus changed our Gen 1 meter to a Gen 2 when they'd agreed to and flagged with National Grid that we needed a new fuse holder fitting, we didn't know about the fuse holder issue until N.G. turned up to fit a new one.

They seem to be very hot on this. I was told they didn't like the existing supply head and would contact NGED to come and fit a new one.

NGED came to check the fuse size 2 yrs ago before I installed the EV charging point, and were happy with it then. I am a bit surprised they are OK with an 80A fuse given all the kit I have got on it but changing the 16 sq mm meter tails for 25 would be a major exercise given the cable route.

I will try and resist any further change as it is yet another appointment to arrange, and someone else I have to explain the entire system to before they will start work. The ACS man who came last week was eventually happy to let me run the house from the batteries while he fitted the smart meter. But he would not allow me to keep the PV arrays going even though it was the same two-pole REC isolator on my side of the meter stopping them from killing him.