Tag Archives: Scottish Power

Will your storage heaters work in April?

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11

by The Curious Scribbler 

I seldom use my website for rants about consumer issues but today I am moved to share my concerns on a matter which may affect many of my local readers if they heat their homes with storage heaters.

If you use the  Economy 7 tariff you may still have a meter which uses a radio tele switch to tell the system when to charge up your storage heaters with off peak electricity.  A separate circuit delivers off peak electricity to the storage heaters and hot water cylinder.  It probably turns on at around midnight and turns off at 7am.  It may be a large black box beside the meter labelled RTS.

Radio teleswitch - WikipediaOr the switch mechanism may be in a white meter such as mine which is labelled Radio Telemeter series K.

 

Radio telemeter help | Electricians Forums | Electrical Safety Advice | Talk Electrician Forum

With some models you hear a loud click when the switch operates. Very soon this system will cease to operate because the BBC long wave radio frequency will be switched off.  The OFGEM website reads thus:

If you have an electricity meter that uses Radio Teleswitch (RTS) technology

The BBC radio service that supports RTS meters is being phased out and is planned to end 31 March 2024. If you have an electricity meter which switches between peak and off-peak tariff rates, such as an Economy 7 or 10 tariff, or it automatically turns on your heating or hot water, you may have a meter that uses Radio Teleswitch (RTS) technology. Read about the changes and how they affect households in the Radio Teleswitch electricity meters: consumer guidance.

So if I do nothing the storage heaters will cease to work on April fools Day.

Scottish Power, they of the impenetrably unhelpful customer service, are eager to install a Smart Meter (indeed the government target demands that they do so within a year or so)  but because of the location of my property, where there is no phone signal, a Smart meter will not communicate with the Smart Metering Wide Area Network  ( SM-WAN).  Scottish Power knows this.   And as OFGEM succinctly puts it

Areas where smart meter signals do not work

Smart meters need a signal to work. The signal comes from the Smart Metering Wide Area Network (SM-WAN). This is a national network that connects smart meters and energy suppliers. Your electricity supplier will tell you if your home can connect to the network and if not what your options are for replacing your existing meter.

Scottish Power does not appear to offer options.  They simply want to install a Smart Meter, perhaps in hope that one day the signal will be improved.

Of course where Smart Meters do work it is possible to receive differently priced electricity by time of day, even without a separate storage heater circuit, so not everyone will be affected.  But I suspect there are a lot of radio teleswitches out in rural Ceredigion and in older flats which will not have been upgraded before the deadline, and some which may never be able operate their storage heaters again.

OFGEM writes

We are monitoring the progress of suppliers and have asked them for updates on their work to replace and upgrade all RTS meters. They must make sure that their customers have a suitable electricity meter installed and that their service is not disrupted.

I live in hope but am seriously worried.   I can find no reliable source of advice.  Meter installers are mysterious subcontractors who cannot be contacted except by your supplier.  I guess a lot of people will wake up to a cold and expensive April.

 

Robbed blind by Scottish Power

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I don’t often settle scores via my blog, but here is a tale to curl your hair.

I’m in the process of renovating a small house, which is being rewired.  Lacking any form of heating and having just one live socket it understandably uses very little electricity.  With great difficulty I convinced Scottish Power of this situation, and agreed to a direct debit of £14.54 /month to cover the standing charge and negligible usage.

Today I thought I would confirm the situation by submitting a further meter reading, showing that in the last 6 weeks I had used 3KWH of electricity.

As soon as I submitted the reading,  this notice popped up! Increasing my bill to £191.44.

Something wrong here.. So I went to Direct Debit Manager  which enables me to set my own payment.  I planned to revert to the original sum.

It wasn’t that easy because this is what happened:

But  I tried and tried and eventually I got to the right page, and set about amending the Direct Debit.  Interestingly here they wanted not £191.44 but  £171.00.  Still pretty exorbitant for using no electricity. So I tried to set my own payment.

Read the bottom line!  I am allowed to revert to the old payment.  But there is one tiny problem:  the penalty will be an immediate one-off payment of £2,659.82!!

Deeply puzzled I took a look at the panel displayed if you click on “View your payments breakdown”

Beyond astounding.  This panel tells me that my next payment review takes place in April 2024.  However, according to Scottish Power paragraph 2, this is only 5 months away!  What calendar are they on? Would you trust a  direct debit to a company which doesn’t know what year they are in?  And increased your bill thirteen fold because you used three kilowatts of electricity?

I’ve since received an email, telling me that they are going to take not the recommended £171 but the far nicer £191.44 which appeared in the first pop-up. Seems dates and figures are pretty labile in the Scottish Power computers.   My account balance is already £47 in credit, which would cover almost three months in a house with no electricity.

Complain you suggest?  The chance would be a fine thing!   The system allows you to communicate online with bots or listen to a couple of hours of canned musak and then speak to an operative trained to resemble a robot.  I already have one unresolved complaint with Scottish Power running since early August.  I have 31 days before they start helping themselves to my £191.44.  I am going to need it.