SMART METER ISSUES

We have installed a GivEnergy system, but are unable to register for Outgoing Octopus feed-in tarrif because our SMART meter does not communicate adequately. This is a known problem for those of us living in the north of England or Scotland because the data communications center (DCC) uses radio ffrequency communication with the Smart meters in the North, many of which have communication issues, while in the South of England the Smart meters use cellular 3G communication.
Have others with Givenergy PV had problems with their SMART meter communication? If so let us know, also if you found a solution. In any case, write to your MP to complain - the DCC needs to be forced to use 3G wherever the RF network fails to communicate

John5114 the DCC needs to be forced to use 3G wherever the RF network fails to communicate

I’ll let others comment on the “have other users had problems with their smart meters in the North”.

There was a recent Panorama programme on smart meters, it’ll be on iPlayer, worth watching it.

One thing that was highlighted was that regardless of the right or wrongs of it, the government signed two contracts for DCC provision, one for the South and one for the North. As you say, the Northern one uses RF and the Southern one 3G. There is no contractual capability for Northern smart meters owners to have a 3G connected smart meter, and if the energy supplier fits one and it doesn’t work, there is no support as it’s outside the DCC contract.

I doubt very much that complaining to your MP will get anything resolved, they can’t force the DCC to install something outside of their contract.

The DCC’s meanwhile can hide behind the “99% of customers have connection” or whatever their service metric is. Of course 1% of the UK that don’t have a reliable connection is an awful lot of people. Again comes back to bad contract in the first place.

Your best chance I’d suggest is to raise a formal complaint with your energy supplier and escalate it to the ombudsman if necessary. The supplier may fit a 3G smart meter for you even though it’s outside of the contract.

Another potential thing to be aware of, the 3G network is being turned off with O2 being the last to turn theirs off because of the DCC contract. It has been suggested that when O2 start turning their network off in 2025 https://www.o2.co.uk/help/network-coverage-and-international/3g-switch-off they will start with the North and Scotland, only holding the South back because of the smart meter network requirement.

This DCC article says that smart meters will fall back to a 2G network, so ongoing connectivity will depend on your 2G coverage
https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/do-smart-meters-use-3g/

John5114 Someone on this forum in your region got a dual-comms meter fitted (3G & RF) but they had to take Octopus to the ombudsman. Theirs was working then stopped so the situation may be different.

Have a hunt around, shouldn't be hard to find.

Edit - the problem of course is that when O2 (Telefonica as was) turn off their 3G network in the area where they have no contract for smart meters then that will stop working again. That starts next month.

Vestas
It was me. It took over 3 years of chasing and moaning at Octo to get my meters smart. They would fit a new gas meter and a new electricity meter every 3 months (which is what I think they have to do). That makes 12 visits.
I got fed up and complained to the Ombudsman and eventually Carla at Octo got involved and organized a dual comms hub to be fitted (RF and GSM, i think). She said it should not really be done, as Arqiva (who run RF in the north should have fixed things), but as they had not, she would stick her neck out. Apparently they use these when meters are in basements and the antenna can get near the surface for reception.
My meters are above ground in a cupboard under stairs on an external wall. I am halfway between Keighley and Skipton, but all the meter fitters said "RF signal is rubbish between the hills"
It is a box on the front of the meter, about 1m of cable and a white plastic strip about 1ft long. Just visible at the top screwed to the timber batten
It worked within about 2 mins of fitting and has been sending solid data since March 2024

Vestas
Hi
I emailed Octo about the coming loss of 3g and this is their reply

SteveCook We'll see. O2 are unlikely to continue 2G services where they've discontinued 3G mainly because its the same masthead equipment. 2G is cheaper to run but where they have no govt contract then why would they bother?

Vodafone (and Three when they merge) apparently have the contract for the 4G smartmeter comms so if it all goes tits-up again then hassle Octopus for a 3G/4G unit.

Vestas
Thanks
I am on Eco 7 during winter so I can do manual readings (if i need to) as half hour daily export is not an issue until summer flux and i will be exporting.
If it all goes pear shape, I guess the Ombudsman will get another case and maybe Arqiva will actually bother to install enough masts

SteveCook If its any consolation they've broken our meter readings again. 7th time in 18 months. No signal problems, just "Kraken" crap.... 😉

My Smart Meter connectivity seems to be good but how can I check how communication to DCC is carried out. I have seen the crudely drawn map but the N/S dividing line seems to go right through where a live!
This is my comms unit:

Rob

Rbor
Have you got an IHD.
Does it work and show data.

Have you got a login with your energy company?
Does that show data

Rbor The Trilliant comms unit in your photo is a GSM device so you are on 2G/3G.

SteveCook
I have IHD, Home mini and Home pro.
They all work, displaying data.
I use Octopus.

Rob

Rbor
Rob
If everything is working I think that shows you are connected to the DCC.
I think the DCC forwards the data to Octo

Vestas Thanks. I wonder exactly where DCC's dividing line is.

Despite me living in Yorkshire and getting my electricity from the Yorkshire region and being with Northern Powergrid DNO, as far as DCC are concerned, I am in Central/South.

That will please the 'Tykes' 😠

Rob

Rbor I wonder exactly where DCC's dividing line is.

They probably don't have a line, more a series of postcodes, some more accurate than others in terms of coverage. People in those postcodes should have dual-comms units fitted as standard but that's "not allowed by DCC".

Just another example of how broken the electricity supply market/infrastructure is in the UK.

Then again in this case the DCC is wholly owned by Crapita (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capita), so what other outcome could there be than failure and/or additional costs. That's ALWAYS the outcome with Crapita......

Vestas Houses in my road are all 1920s vintage. Meters are in cellars, unless residents have had them resited. I paid £1,000 to have mine moved when I had renovation work carried out about 10 years ago before smart meters really became 'a thing'.

I have neighbours who have requested smart meters but they have been turned down because there is no signal picked up in cellar. We are talking about 150 houses in my road! I know of others where a smart meter installation was abandoned because of an old plastic consumer unit which prevented a signal being picked up. Solution is for resident to get an electrician in to replace consumer unit at considerable cost.

There can be considerable obstacles to getting working smart meters, particularly in older properties (which make up a lot of the UK housing stock). And government policy is to move as many people as possible onto Smart Meters.
See the tale of the smart meter woes of SteveCook.

So why do DCC not allow dual-comms units to be installed when these may be a solution to connectivity issues.

Is DCC being owned by Capita a conflict of interest?

Rob

https://anengineersview.tech.blog/smets2-is-there-anybody-there/
This is an interesting article.
When I suggested to Octo that if they could not fix my dumb meters, could I open up the comms section and fix an antenna, they went loopy!!
Capita will keep publishing that "they have installed x% of meters in homes and met their target. They have no idea if they are working and never publish that as a percentage"

I only got a dual comms hub fitted by Octo (RF & GSM) after making a formal compliant to the Ombudsman. For 2 years i was asking Octo to kick Arqiva and the reply was always "no problem with network in your area, fit new meters". Eventually (it took 3 years), someone at Octo decided doing the same thing every 3 months and hoping for a different result was a waste of time and got the hub/antenna fitted.

Octo could not see the irony of the smart meter TV advert with Einstein on it "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result"

SteveCook The comms units (certainly the GSM ones anyway) have tamper alarms on them so I wouldn't recommend doing anything in that article as it'll leave you liable for the cost of replacement - which is likely to be a four figure sum once the bill for "engineer's" time is included.

Rbor So why do DCC not allow dual-comms units to be installed when these may be a solution to connectivity issues.

I assume because there is no contract for GSM service in areas assigned to Arqiva. This is going to be an issue for people sooner or later.

Vestas
Agreed and noted. The point I was trying to make to Octo/Arqiva was that the facility appears to exist within the electronics, why not utilize it and make the damn things work rather than go though (in may case 24 meters that just get scrapped because they did not work - according to the fitters).

SteveCook Presumably because Octopus get paid for each attempt?

Vestas
I think most of the fitters were 3rd party and not even Octo.
Those guys told me they got paid "per fitting" and "could not waste time messing around if they did not connect" and would just leave saying "report it and Octo will try again in 3 months if they don't connect in the next few weeks"

SteveCook Yes but Octopus will get paid to fit the meters regardless of who they contract to do the work. In turn DCC will be funded for each attempt so why fix it when it generates revenue for everyone in the chain (bar the end-user)?

"Trebles all round" as the Eye would put it 🙂

SteveCook https://anengineersview.tech.blog/smets2-is-there-anybody-there/

What a fascinating article. Thanks for the link.

Your sorry tale and discoveries just adds to the reasons why this country seems incapable of doing anything these days, too hung up on processes and vested interests (and cover ups).

Rob

As an aside, the only sane way to expand smartmeter coverage is to make it more granular - ie more transmitter/receivers.

Much as it pains me to say this, the only way of doing that would be to pay BT lots of cash. Then again I'd rather give BT the money than Virgin then Vodafone/3 for a GSM/LTE system which doesn't reach a lot of people now.

BT are phasing out lots of the VDSL2 cabinets as FTTH is rolled out. Edit - the green boxes you see on streets.

Each cabinet has a concrete plinth, ducted power and fibre already in place. There's also tens of thousands of them, many of them wholly funded by govt intervention (BDUK schemes) so there's sure to be lots which could be used for "basestations" to extend/fill-in blackspots - potentially for mobile blackspots too.

Lots of vested interests would likely prevent this being considered. At least for now, while there's plenty of govt money to be had preserving the status quo. We'll see when the cash/grid runs out 😉

Edit - also the cabinets mentioned above are adjacent to both E-side* and D-side* cabling - ie existing phonelines. While BT intend to pull the E-side and most D-side cabling out to recover the copper, a lot of the D-side isn't financially viable to recover (ducts that have collapsed/DiG/etc) so there would be the possibility of a dedicated connection to a customer meter via the "old" phoneline.

*exchange-side and distribution-side, E-side cables are chunky to say the least and have a lot of metal in them. D-side go from the green cabinets to your house, so split a lot.