Building up large credit amount due to charge anytime credit not being included into direct debit

Hey ​@paulandrewjones 

I’m sorry to hear of the issues you’re having,

I’ll raise this internally & see if I can get any helpful advice. The following topics may have some helpful advice:
 

If you need assistance in the meatime:
 

How to get in contact with the Charge Anytime team

• Charge Anytime - 0330 175 9678 (Option 1 new customers/option 2 existing customers) or chargeanytime@ovo.com

The direct debit calculator does not adjust for refunds/credits such as Charge Anytime or Power Move credits.

The DD calculator uses your recorded usage from meter readings, plus or minus any current Debit or Credit that you have on your balance.

Whilst including the current Debit/Credit is meant to balance things out it isn’t hard to see that in practice it doesn’t always do that.
Mainly because your CA credit is increasing your account credit each month but only being adjusted for  every 3.

The calculator also accounts for fixed rate ‘Bolt-Ons’ such as Greener Energy, etc.

However it can’t easily account for variable bolt-ons such as CA or PM.
Those would need another calculation to be done each month and the result fed into the DD calculator as another factor.

For the PM credits it’s not that great a problem, but the credits from CA can be much larger and can easily skew the recommended DD.

OVO don’t/haven’t seem interested in refining the DD calculator to take these variable credit amounts into account -if they can.
At least not yet, but maybe with more shouting from affected customers?

Yes its awkward as there seems to be no solution. We reached an absolutely crazy £750 in credit which is 5 month energy usage, got max refund amount of £330 and reduced the payment to the minimum allowed £155. The next month it just automatically put it back up to £172 again….

This is an annoying feature of the current automated DD calculation; potential, possibly predictable credits to an energy account can’t be included. For example, some customers will receive a regular annual boost every winter in the form of the Warm Home Discount, possibly leaving their accounts with an unnecessarily large credit balance. The adjustment that can be made online is limited - reduce the DD by 10% for a period. 

Making the DD more reasonable will involve contacting Support: first, to request a refund of the excess beyond a month’s expected costs, and then to adjust the DD if necessary. The online refund request wizard won’t allow you to reduce the balance below three months’ DD, but support agents can.

Note that when electing to pay by DD, you agree to keep the account in credit ...

Hi - I have EV charge anytime and Heat Pump Plus. My projected electricity costs used to calculate my Direct Debit don’t seem to take account of either of these upgrades. Does anyone else have this problem?

Hi ​@bmedey ,

This is currently considered intended behaviour due to how those work. It’s not considered a bug, but you can always just leave any extra credit in your account or dump it out every so often should you wish.

Thanks - so you think the projection systematicaly overstates the electricity cost? Ovo do estimate the amount of energy used to charge my car / heat my house - so I'm not sure why they can't build these into the projections. It doesn't seem right to overcharge and then expect the customer to have to request refunds.

It’s more because those add-ons initially charge in full upfront and then issues a pro-rata credit afterwards. It’s not overcharging because you ultimately pay the correct rate. This is just how Type of Use stuff has to work.

I disagree - OVO estimates how much of my usage is on heating my house and how much is on charging my car. It's relatively simple to build this into the projection, which would lead to a more realistic view on how much electricity will cost. If there's a desire to encourage these technologies (which is why discounts are given), why penalise by overcharging for these and then expect the customer to claim it back.

As I mentioned, there is no overcharge - the credits are automatically issued directly onto the bill itself.

You’re confusing the bill with the direct debit.

Sorry - I am being overcharged. Yes, I can claim it back - but it is still money out of my account which I then have to claim back if the projection doesn't continue to believe that I need to pay more in the future and therefore block the request for refund. I don't understand why the direct debit calculation cannot take account of theae add ons, thus coming up with a realistic view of electricity costs.

While the current implementation isn’t ideal, it is what it is. Due to how Type of Use stuff works, it cannot be calculated as easily as you might think.

It may change in the future to a more idealistic version, but for now we just have to work with the current methods.

The core issue is that with "type of use" tariffs like Charge Anytime and Heat Pump Plus, the system needs to know what the energy was used for before it can apply the specific discounted rate.

Think of it like this:

• Standard electricity is billed at one flat rate.
• Charge Anytime/Heat Pump Plus means certain energy usage (for EV charging or heat pump operation) gets a different, cheaper rate.

The meters and billing systems aren't sophisticated enough yet to differentiate the usage in real-time and apply the discount instantly. They record the total energy used, and then processes that data after the fact to identify the "discountable" usage and apply the credit.

It's essentially a post-billing adjustment, not a real-time price change. 

Maybe one for the development list then. It significantly distorts the projected costs. For example, i think my Direct Debit is overstated by about 50% at the moment. Many thanks for the responses though - much appreciated.

Unfortunately, I don’t see it as one for the suggestions box that can be worked on anytime soon (if ever).

Because the discounts for Charge Anytime and Heat Pump Plus are applied as credits after the fact, the system calculates the Direct Debit based on the full, standard unit rates and your estimated consumption.

It's impossible for the direct debit calculation to know in advance how much of your usage will qualify for the discount. So, it has to assume standard rates for everything when it sets up those regular payments.

What ends up happening is:

1. Your direct debit is set based on your total estimated usage at the normal price.
2. You pay that higher direct debit amount.
3. Later, when your bill is generated, the discounts are applied, creating a credit on your account.
4. This credit then reduces your overall balance owed for that bill.

So, while the direct debit might initially feel inflated, it's because it's paying for the consumption upfront, before the retrospective discounts kick in. Over time, if the credits consistently exceed the direct debit, the account will build up a credit balance, and the direct debit might then be reviewed and reduced by OVO, but it won't happen instantly or automatically reflect the discount on the very first payment.

The other killer factor is that the “perfect system” that I think you’re after would also require real-time access to your Smart Meter data. That’s probably never going to happen because infrastructure and privacy related matters means suppliers aren’t going to get that access anytime soon I’m afraid.

It’s unfortunate, but it’s a limitation of how Type Of Use tariffs must be administered - there just isn’t any other way right now.

The current (a few days ago) Official explanation of why these add-on scheme savings can't be included in the Direct Debit calculation can be found here:

I had the same queries relating to another add on - Battery Boost.

If you think about it from OVO's perspective (rather than ours) what other method is there other than the rebate system currently in use? 

Battery Boost charges up overnight to a fixed %. The amount of cheap rate electricity will depend on the starting %. The starting % will depend on the previous days usage, amount of sun (if you have PV) plus other factors unknowable to OVO.

The only method I can see is to charge full rate and then rebate depending on actual use.

No doubt it will become smarter as the system evolves but can anyone think of another way? 

My only gripe is that it's not easy to reduce your direct debit to a more realistic level when it's clear that you're subsantially overpaying.  (I could only reduce mine by £7).

You can get more reduction when justified by contacting support and explaining why your DD should be lower.

The problem with that is that you will have to do it again every 3-months as it gets automatically recalculated and automatically increased again at 3-month intervals.

I have had to do that in the past when for complicated reasons my FAC was over 3x what it should have been. It’s easy enough to do, but having to do it every 3-months does get to be a drag.

Automatically increased? I thought you had to implement the increase - that’s what the core terms say, at least: We can ask you to increase your Direct Debit amount anytime if prices change (in line with this contract) or you’re using more energy than we estimated.

Interestingly, ‘revising our estimate’ isn’t a legitimate reason for OVO to increase the DD according to those terms. 

We have been through that before,

• The recalculation runs, and says it needs to increase.
• An automatic email/tex/account notification is generated and (should be) sent to you asking you to increase your DD.
• Then if you don’t increase your DD the computer increases it automatically anyway.(So you then have to phone to get it reduced again).

That’s not quite what the T&C’s say will/should happen - but it is what happens in practice.

Sometimes people don’t get (or don’t see in time) the communication asking then to increase their DD themselves.
That’s when you see them here on the forum shouting that OVO have put their DD up without informing them.

I’m currently just under 3 months in credit, but seeing as our plan will be ending soon with the new price it looks to be just over 2 months based on our consumption excluding charge anytime..

on average have £70+ of credit, its quite annoying seeing how much is built up.

I prefer the older system which you could auto refund online as long as you have 1 months credit. 

Kind of wish you could have a feature to average out your anytime credit over say 12 months, then add on an extra £10 to £15 to cover unusual addons so we build up some credit but not have a grand routinely sitting in credit.

Its also a pain trying to compare prices as no switch site i’ve found accounts for charging credits

I’m getting so very frustrated with Ovo after so many years!

Every three months or so I receive an email telling me my DD is increasing to an unaffordable amount (I’m a pensioner only on a state pension). I cannot afford a direct debit of £284!!!!!

60% of my usage is charging my car!

The direct debit calculations don’t take into account my car charging rebate each month.

Each time I actually manage to speak to someone my direct debit is put back down to an affordable amount again. I’m always in credit, check my account every day and, if it’s low, I top it up.

I’ve written complaining but no-one has got back to me.

There is not enough detail in your post for me to answer  with precision but I take it that you have not set up Charge Anytime which should give you a rebate, in arrears monthly, equivalent to 7p per kWh for your car charging. If, as you say, 60% of your electricity bill is car charging the rebate will be substantial.

if your car is one of those on OVOs supported list then by following a simple online procedure you may set up your car for charging via the Charge Anytime app to achieve this.

However by far the most preferable route in my opinion is to charge by reference to a recommended charger such as the Anderson or the Indra in which case any EV will benefit from the cheap rate.

I mean no discourtesy but you should read this forum and seek out the helpful practical guides to determine how to reap the benefit of Charge Anytime as an OVO customer.

For what it’s worth I am also a pensioner and having read the available guidance on this forum my set up has worked consistently since installation last September.

Yes, of course I have!
I have an Indra charger and use the app and use the Charge Anytime app too - I charge every night. I have had my EV for over four years and I’m a volunteer driver seven days a week!

I used to be able to see how much I’d saved every month on the Ovo website page but that’s gone now.