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Updated on 19/09/2023 by Abby_OVO

 

You may have heard recently that OVO Energy Tracker launched. But if you’re unsure what it’s about or how to use it, here’s some of my own top tips and tricks! :slight_smile:

Seven seems to be a really popular number recently, so I’ve got eight tips instead. :sunglasses:

 

It’s free to all OVO Members

 

OVO Energy Tracker is not only free, but it also makes some of the previously paid features free too. Features previously known as ‘Energy Spotlights’ and the ‘Carbon Tracker’ no longer require you to have OVO Beyond. But if you were using them via OVO Beyond, everything has been migrated over.

 

You can find tips and advice

 

As well as insights into your energy usage, OVO Greenlight is also designed to offer tips and advice that can help to reduce your usage and save you a little bit of cash. You won’t see all the tips all of the time, so check back every so often for more!

 

A smart meter isn’t required

 

To make full use of Energy Tracker, a working smart meter in Half-Hourly mode is needed. However, even without one you can still use Greenlight - it just won’t be quite as powerful. You can still get tips and advice along with seeing the Carbon Tracker regardless of your meter. :)

 

OVO Energy Tracker takes time to learn

 

To get more accurate data from OVO Energy Tracker, it helps to fill out your home profile and allow a month’s worth of half-hourly mode smart meter data to be submitted. OVO Energy Tracker might still provide data in the meantime, but it won’t be as accurate at first. Hang in there for a while and it should improve!

 

You can find OVO Energy Tracker in the OVO Energy apps too!

 

Yup! It was initially released on Earth Day to the apps as well, but had to be turned off temporarily at the time, possibly because I broke it. Sorry! But it’s now back and better than before! If you don’t see it yet, I have some solutions that might help.

 

The monthly emails are optional

 

Only smart meter members who’ve opted in to communications from OVO will get a monthly OVO Energy Tracker email.  While some members such as myself find the email newsletters useful, not everyone does. If you’d rather not get them though, that’s totally cool with OVO. You can always opt-in or opt-out at anytime.

 

OVO Greenlight data updates every 24 hours

 

Smart meters in Half-Hourly mode submit your readings and usage data overnight on a daily basis, usually sometime around midnight and 2am. It also takes a few minutes for the number crunching to go through. If you’re looking for today’s data, it will be available tomorrow morning by the time you wake up. Any changes you make to your Home Profile today will also be reflected from tomorrow onwards.

 

You can share your experiences here on the forum

 

As a brand new feature, OVO Energy Tracker is still a little bit experimental and not always perfect. But that doesn’t mean it won’t get better over time. If you spot anything that doesn’t look right, have any ideas for improvements or come across any bugs, feel free to let us know right here on the forum! There’s a few magic tricks that might happen from here as a result…

 

Newly installed smart meters won’t show in OVO Energy Tracker straight away!

 

Ok, this is technically a ninth tip, but it’s an important one. If you’ve only recently had a smart meter installed, it won’t usually be ready to submit Smart Readings until around six weeks after the install and it won’t be in Half-Hourly mode unless you specifically request it. OVO’s Support Team can change the settings on request though. But if your smart meter is brand new, please hang in there for a bit before reporting any usage data issues. :)

The home profile has a meaningless question Do you have a Water Heater? Well, yes I do (I pity anyone who doesn’t) but whatever I answer I still get this incorrect result !!! I have sent ‘Feedback’ but nothing’s changed.

 

Well spotted, @juliamc - I’m told that this has actually been changed already in the web version (not yet the app, that’s incoming) of the online account, to specify that it’s referencing an electricity water heater. 

 

Sorry to say @Tim_OVO but Greenlight hasn’t changed for me ! I answered Yes to Electric water heater and still have all my (very small) gas usage logged as Water Heating.

The only week that my gas usage is all Cooking (which is all it ever is) was the week I was on holiday and used no gas at all. Unfortunately the Usage graph tells me I used 2 days worth while I was still away !!

It’s a bit of a first world problem, but if it’s going to tell me something it ought to be correct !

 

Thanks @juliamc - the Carbon Insights team love hearing this and have said feedback is always helpful in improving how they can estimate and show visualize your usage. 

 

With your most recent feedback specifically, they’re going to adjust the calculations to work better for people with electric heating.

 

I was amazed at the low "average" electricity usage. Perhaps many are like my neighbour who has a TV and radio as her only technology, and a clothes washing machine but no dishwasher. 

 

@EverythingNeedsAUserName my household of 4 is sadly well above the average OVO home on gas usage. Leaving lights on in empty rooms prompted me to post this earlier in the year: 

 

 

Maybe it’s time for another chat...


Interesting that Greenlight thinks we put the heating on?

A bit too early in the year for us. How many have had heating on yet? 

 


Just to add to my previous post.

The gas heating split is a bit strange as the gas condensing system boiler only comes on once overnight to heat up the water in the tank for a short time.

So it is unlikely to be heating but could be i guess in some homes? Perhaps something to think about with Greenlight? Also are you realistically going to ever use just 7kw of heating in a week? 

Very infrequently the boiler doesn't kick in if the water is still hot enough from the previous day.


My chart of gas use tells me it’s mostly going to Water Heating - my only use of gas now is for the hob ! I think it’s a bug...


Well spotted, @Jeffus.

 

As @juliamc has mentioned these consumption breakdowns aren’t 100% accurate. The algorithms make judgements on what’s using the energy based on patterns of usage, but it doesn’t always get things right. We’ve forwarded your feedback on to the team as it’s really helpful for them to identify issues and make improvements to how consumption is identified in future.

 

Keep up the constructive feedback team! :thumbsup:

 

 


Well spotted, @Jeffus.

 

As @juliamc has mentioned these consumption breakdowns aren’t 100% accurate. The algorithms make judgements on what’s using the energy based on patterns of usage, but it doesn’t always get things right. We’ve forwarded your feedback on to the team as it’s really helpful for them to identify issues and make improvements to how consumption is identified in future.

 

Keep up the constructive feedback team! :thumbsup:

 

 

Nothing against heating for last week

Just to add to my previous post.

The gas heating split is a bit strange as the gas condensing system boiler only comes on once overnight to heat up the water in the tank for a short time.

So it is unlikely to be heating but could be i guess in some homes? Perhaps something to think about with Greenlight? Also are you realistically going to ever use just 7kw of heating in a week? 

Very infrequently the boiler doesn't kick in if the water is still hot enough from the previous day.

Nothing against heating in Greenlight for last week. 

I did notice that there was something against electric water heating but we don't have anything like that (kettles are another category). I guess electric showers are quite common? Ours run of the hot water tank via a pump. 

 


Interesting observation, @Jeffus - am I right in thinking there’s no option to specify whether you have an electric shower?

 

I’ve once again passed this one back to the Greenlights team so hopefully they’ll be able to use this to make future improvements. :relaxed:


Interesting observation, @Jeffus - am I right in thinking there’s no option to specify whether you have an electric shower?

 

I’ve once again passed this one back to the Greenlights team so hopefully they’ll be able to use this to make future improvements. :relaxed:

Perhaps add to this?

 


My observation for this week. 

One of the tips is about cooking with gas... but we don't cook with gas... and ovo know that. 

We did use our slow cooker to batch cook up some chicken, apple, celery, pepper and onions yesterday. It usually just stays in the cupboard so lets see if this becomes a regular thing again. 

 


Well spotted in terms of the gas-based advice, @Jeffus .

 

I’d argue that even if you’re cooking with electric, batch cooking is still a top-tip in terms of energy-efficient catering, although I’m gonna check this one with the team to see if they’ve got equivalent figures for electric oven owners.

 

Love that you’ve dusted off the slow-cooker, nothing like a good autumnal slow-cooked stew! :carrot::potato::stew:  Keep us posted with how this habit-change goes (always on the look out for any good veggie stew recipes too, if you’ve got a fave? :wink:


We don’t have a dryer, nor a dishwasher, our washing machine packed up in the first week of lockdown and I haven’t been able to replace it. Our cooker doesn’t use electricity. I’ve tried putting the fridge on a timer so it doesn’t run for half of the 4-7pm peak period but I keep finding its totally defrosted, water everywhere and food spoiled. I’m at a loss to think of other ways to use less electricity but my kids are sick of not being allowed to put the lights or their computers on, not do any homework in those hours and I’m sure it’s costing more overall charging up rechargeables outside of 4-7pm, so we have battery lights around the house and a projector running from a powerpack….not to mention the damage being done to their eyes in the half light.

I’ve been taking in unwanted and rescued animals for 50+ years so I’m not prepared to get rid of our fishtank or vivarium (whose heaters are turned off in the warmer months anyway). Even the pest repellent plugs are switched off in those hours, we’re that desperate, but are paying the price for that now as its the time of year when they start looking for warmer homes so come indoors and they have.

We already have a smart meter. We agreed to trial one early on so have had it since they were first introduced.

We can’t have solar panels, have been surveyed several times, as there’s not enough roof facing the right direction.

Has anyone any other ideas for cutbacks?

 

We also have the looming disaster of an EV charger to be fitted soon. We ordered an EV on lease months ago, trying to do the responsible thing. I’ve been driving hundreds of miles around the local towns to look for places to charge it for free but all supermarkets are charging now. Its taken so long to get the house fuse changed that we cannot now apply for an EV drive account...so our bills are about to treble :O


Hi @shazreeves and thanks for sharing this. For some reason the post ended up in our archive section, I’ve moved it over to the ‘my account’ category.

 

Are you part of the Power Move trial? If you are, we have a private group set up for you to get tips on how to hit your 12.5% target. Request to join this here. I have a feeling it will be easier to hit your target once you ensure EV charging during the off peak midweek periods! 

 

 

 

 


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