Octopus smart meter installation

[kuruma]

you guys are both lucky. Despite registering my interest in mid-March, only now to they deign to tell me that my postcode doesn't have a strong enough WAN signal for a SMETS meter.

Here's what their Meter FAQ literally says:

Can I have one?
Yes.

Eh?

I'm awaiting a response to the strongly-worded email I fired off.

 

[Gatsojon]

I had a meter installation date of 9th April which was understandably cancelled. Now been offered a date of 3rd August for installation. Just noted for information.

 

[Masklin]

Octopus smart meter fitted this morning.

Minor hiccup with the job sheet IT delayed the start of work by 45 minutes or so, but once that was solved the actual installation and commissioning seemed to go quite smoothly.

Fingers crossed in the next week or so will be able to switch on to the Go tariff.

 

[dakaix]

Engineer from AES Smart Metering has just left after fitting my new SMETS2 meters, much like @AYYC I switched to Octopus back in Feburary and ended up having my installed cancelled less than a week before thanks to the human malware.

Looking forward to getting switched over to Agile now to halve my £/kWh!

Meter's and 30 minute readings became visible in my Octopus account on Sunday, emailed them yesterday requesting to switch to Agile and they have just confirmed today that it'll be done at midnight. So all told it's taken 6 days from meter installation to going live on Agile, not bad at all!

 

[SFBanks]

had my meters installed yesterday but the tech said the meter would not communicate with the supplier side. I have emailed octopus and they said they need to wait to get all the meter details before the comms will work....

No idea how long that takes. will give it a couple of days and contact them again.

 

[Masklin]

had my meters installed yesterday but the tech said the meter would not communicate with the supplier side. I have emailed octopus and they said they need to wait to get all the meter details before the comms will work....

No idea how long that takes. will give it a couple of days and contact them again.

After my meter was fitted this morning I emailed Octopus just to confirm there was nothing I needed to do and what the process was. Got this back...


Thanks for getting in touch.

As soon as we get the meter details sent through from the engineers, the smart metering team will establish a remote connection. We then get through the half hourly meter readings that are required to move you onto the Go tariff. This usually takes around 2 weeks and you will receive email notification as soon as the Go tariff goes live.

Any further questions let me know.

 

[MartinA65]

After my meter was fitted this morning I emailed Octopus just to confirm there was nothing I needed to do and what the process was. Got this back...


Thanks for getting in touch.

As soon as we get the meter details sent through from the engineers, the smart metering team will establish a remote connection. We then get through the half hourly meter readings that are required to move you onto the Go tariff. This usually takes around 2 weeks and you will receive email notification as soon as the Go tariff goes live.

Any further questions let me know.

Hi everyone. Newbie here, no Tesla yet but I,m switching to Octopus in anticipation. Could someone please send me a referral code?

 

[SteveLR3]

Hi everyone. Newbie here, no Tesla yet but I,m switching to Octopus in anticipation. Could someone please send me a referral code?

PM on its way!

 

[MartinA65]

PM on its way!

Thanks Steve, now all I need is a M3 LR

 

[Masklin]

After being installed yesterday the smart meter is now visible in my Octopus account, albeit with no readings yet.

Will be interested to see how quickly, or not, the meter remote connection to Octopus starts getting readings...

 

[Pagemakers]

Mine took about 5 days after my install a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Drew57]

Meters installed as planned this afternoon & now waiting for the switch from Tracker to Agile.

One hiccup though - gas shows a slight drop in pressure both before/after so the installer has had to cap the incoming supply until we can find a Gas Safe registered engineer to do a full pressure test & resolve a possible leak (nobody local seems to be free until later next week)

I'm happy that elec will soon be switched but Mrs wife is not because the boy's toy on the drive will probably be bathed, showered & towelled several times before she can

 

[Rooster6655]

Waiting since March no responses and no idea of when, they told me basically no information as to the likelihood of anytime soon

 

[c7carl]

Email exchange with Octopus Energy today:

Me: “Please could you provide progress regarding installation of Smart Meter.”

Octopus: “You are on our register to have a Smart Meter so as soon as we have any appointment available for you we will be in touch.”

Me: “Any idea when that may be?”

Octopus: “Unfortunately not at the moment.”

None the wiser...

 

[Masklin]

The engineer that fitted mine on Tuesday said he’d only started back on Monday, so only his second day working since lockdown began back at the end of March. I was also the only appointment he had on the day, which understandably looks like a fairly cautious approach to getting installations going again.

Hopefully if they have no issues they will be able to increase numbers going forward.

My recent experience was to be told no idea when I might get the smart meter fitted, but to then be offered a selection of appointments the following week a day or two later. I guess the situation is rather flexible at the moment as they slowly get things moving again.

 

[Jeeves]

Meters installed as planned this afternoon & now waiting for the switch from Tracker to Agile.
…

That switch was quite quick for me (just a few days), but it took nearly three months to get my first bill. I’ve only just received the first regular monthly one too. I must say that the bills are excellent with a complete breakdown to every 30-minute period. I was unsure if I had made the right decision in switching to Agile, but was pleased to see my average kWh price over the month to be lower than 8p incl VAT (the off-peak rate I was getting with EDF Go Electric) without me making any special effort to avoid the 16:00–19:00 peak window.

You might find the OctoWatchdog app useful when you are told you have been switched to Agile. I only recently installed the app after learning about it on this forum, and I wish I had known about it before I got my first bill. You can see what your charges have been over the last 20–30 days without having to wait for a bill. It sometimes seems to fall a little behind because the data coming from the Octopus APIs is incomplete, but the app is far easier to understand and use than the dashboard on the Octopus website.

 

[Drew57]

You might find the OctoWatchdog app useful when you are told you have been switched to Agile. I only recently installed the app after learning about it on this forum, and I wish I had known about it before I got my first bill. You can see what your charges have been over the last 20–30 days without having to wait for a bill. It sometimes seems to fall a little behind because the data coming from the Octopus APIs is incomplete, but the app is far easier to understand and use than the dashboard on the Octopus website.

I already downloaded it a week ago & it looks very useful.

No rush for me to get the actual switch as doubt I'll use Agile much until solar/battery storage starts to dwindle late Autumn but glad It'll be up, running & ready sometime soon.

 

[Jeeves]

I already downloaded it a week ago & it looks very useful.

No rush for me to get the actual switch as doubt I'll use Agile much until solar/battery storage starts to dwindle late Autumn but glad It'll be up, running & ready sometime soon.

At the risk of going off topic, may I ask what you spent on getting solar/battery storage set up and how long you expect before you break even on it? Whilst first-time EV ownership has made me a budding eco-warrior and I’m interested in the tech, I can’t see that it is financially viable with the current lack of incentives.

 

[Drew57]

At the risk of going off topic, may I ask what you spent on getting solar/battery storage set up and how long you expect before you break even on it? Whilst first-time EV ownership has made me a budding eco-warrior and I’m interested in the tech, I can’t see that it is financially viable with the current lack of incentives.

I installed the first 4kW PV & 6.4kW battery storage several years before the FIT scheme ended so I get a good tariff rate that is guaranteed to increase by RPI/2.5% pa (it's for 20 or 25 years total, cant recall without checking) Since then I upped the PV to 5kW & basically the house runs grid free March-mid October. Useful amounts too on sunny days in the winter.

Here's an image of usage during one of many sunny days in May - the low pink line at the start is residual power from the previous day battery storage running the house, green is solar starting to rise with the sun on the panels & blue shows excess being diverted back to the grid once the batteries are full. That 'pink' period earlier on was the car charging & the other various pink drops in to the blue will be things like oven, dishwasher, kettle, maybe lawnmower & further auto top up to the car via the Zappi smart charger where we're using the surplus rather than exporting it (great thing about the FIT tariff we are on is that in addition to payment for everything we generate, we are paid a further 50% on the assumption that is the surplus we export. So if we use/store as much as possible we are able to get the benefit AND be paid for it regardless of how little we actually export back to the grid. That scheme is finished for any new installations)

Any blue spikes below the datum line are where we have drawn power from the grid..... so pay for that!
Generation Power is a misnoma - it's what we have actually used

Total spend has been just over £11k & I've had payments since totalling around £3.5k plus a 48% reduction on my annual electricity bills giving a further saving of around £2.25k. We still have many years to run on the FIT scheme.

I'm not naive enough to believe that at some point the batteries won't fail & the panels will lose a little each year however I've hedged against electricity prices which are likely to increase over the life time of the PV system. Whether it's been a good investment or not, we are very happy & once we switch to Agile, our annual electricity bill, including car charging should still be below £350.

 

[Jeeves]

Thanks for sharing that @Drew57. Think I’ve missed the boat due to the retraction of the FIT scheme, what a shame.