Are there conditions to the free electricity offer?

Well, yes. I can get quite close, but not exactly what I was given for July - £ 0.32. If I look at the usage on the three days I managed to remember, two were well under 1 kWh and one well over. So I assume that for that one day, I get rewarded for only 1 kWh. If I then tot up the three days’ rewardable usage and multiply by the unit rate ex VAT, I get £0.33. I’m afraid that’s not close enough to convince me that I’ve got it right, so I still don’t know whether the VAT calculation is right or not 😖

A bit difficult to tell with such a low figure, and for only 3  inputs.

Where you using your unit rate or the SVT rate that applied at the time the hours were used?
Would it make much difference with only a 32p vs 33p figure?

I’ve now got all of my previous Free Energy days and hours from the app, and gathered my 1/2-hourly usage figures for those hours on a spreadsheet.
Plus I know what credits I’ve had, if not the exact date they were calculated on.
I’ll start adding calculations to the spreadsheet later.

As I now avidly scan my emails for gems from OVO (to avoid the bitter disappointment, reported in my previous posts,  of failing to see my “Free lekky from 11-12am” til late afternoon, or worse, failing to manage my diary sufficiently firmly when I do see this fabulous offer in time) imagine my delight when today, at just after 1.30pm, I managed to spot an OVOID Komunikashun, at the top of my in-box, only 7 minutes after it was despatched from Lekky-mission Control at 13.23!   That’s the good news; however, my keen sense of anticipation was dashed as it read only thus:

“

Now, call me old fashioned, but how can such a dry reply (without a single joke or metaphor) win the award?  Especially as it’s written by someone who obviously works for OVO? Now ​@Chris_OVO is probably a lovely lass or lad, but surely an award -winning reply should be a bit less focussed; not a meander or simile in sight?  And if you do work for OVO (?) ain’t that Insider Trading?

At least my earlier reply, 12 days ago, a couple of posts above...

(where I said “Drat!  I opted for free lekky tonight from 9-10pm… planning to stack the dishwasher, washing machine with the past two days’ crud, and, having turned off the heating/hot water  storage tank timeswitch yesterday, planning a whoof tonight before shower day tomorrow…  Then ‘er indoors diaries a visit to geriatric, needy friends early evening and a slap up meal out later.  So here’s my dillemma; do I save a few bob (and the Planet) by turning her down? Thus alienating old friends and worse, the love of my life…? And don’t talk about programmable timeswitches… me ‘ouse ain’t got Smart kontrolz and at my age I can barely see the antique digital timeswitch in the airing cupboard, let alone work out how to change it!  “)

… raised a “like” from a geezer or geezeress called ​@chrisablake  as well as constructive marriage -guidance advice from ​@Phil225xe and ​@Nukecad   After all, if OVO is (as it seems) Devoted to Diversification Beyond the Boring Business of supplying gas and lekky (spot the twin alliteration there?), they don’t just want factual replies… Or am I missing the point of these thousands of pages of bloggery?

So,

For July I opted into at least 4hours. And I deliberately made sure I put the washing machine on during those hours.

July bill comes along and grand total credit of 0.08p this can’t be right! My unit rate is 22.23kwh

so if you get 1kwh an hour and I signed up to 4hrs, and put the washing machine on during those hours. Like yes our machine is fairly new but I don’t think it’s so new that it’s using around 0.2kwh an hour or 2p to run a cycle, and the hours I’ve picked there is also generally someone in the house anyway so some lights will be on likely working on the laptop/ watching tv. 
 

just something doesn’t seem right with the way it’s being calculated.

Like maybe with the delays in smart meter sending the data (ours is set up for half hourly though) that it doesn’t actually send the busy period 

Morning ​@ctify and a warm welcome to the OVO Forum.

Please could you confirm whether you’re referring to opting into Power Move Flex events, or whether you’re referring to the Beyond free electricity offer?

There’s no need to guess what hours you joined in for, or what energy you used during those hours.

The Free Energy dates and hours you can get from the app, it lists all of the dates that you actually joined up for.
The kwh usage for those hours you can get from the half-hour electricity usage on you online account or in the app.

I've now done a spreadsheet for my own hours/usage and (after playing about with possible options and tariffs) I've concluded the following:

To calculate your Beyond Free Energy credit:
They are using a maximum of 1kWh free per hour selected.
They are using your own tariff rate, ex-VAT.
(Don’t forgrt that if you are on a variable tariff the rate changed on 1st July)

My sheet calculated credits do not quite match the actual credits I've been given, June and July are respectively 2-pence and 1-pence different.
However I'm putting that down to the fact that OVO will be using 3-decimal places for kWh figures whereas I'm only using 2-DPs, which could easily explain the difference.

For what it's worth here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet with my Free Energy progress to date:

I think that was a very good effort to show that the Free Energy credit is actually based on a calculation rather than a random amount alluded to by some comments. It does take time and effort to understand what is being offered and to know what to do in order to maximise your return. I'm sure some people are put off when the expected returns don't materialize.

Thomas Edison. People don't realise how close they were to success when they gave up.

What fun!

I’m sure we’ve been told how to determine which month a particular week’s figures belong to, but perhaps it doesn’t matter when working out the monthly result.

Rounding errors are a nuisance. For example, I’m fairly sure OVO calculates its ex VAT tariffs to six places of decimals (in £, that is) but publishes them with four. The VAT inc. figures shown in quotes consist of either the six-digit figure or the four-digit one + 5% rounded to four. Either way, there’s liable to be a difference of 0.01p one way or the other. It would always be the same if rounding were applied consistently, but that’s obviously too much to expect. Since you’ve ended up within 2p three times, that’s pretty conclusive. 

You could easily eliminate rounding errors in your own calculations simply by using the three-decimal figures available via the API*. The earliest time I can get mine is sliding later and later; a few months ago I could get them at 08:30 (BST) most days. Now I have to wait until after 10:30 to get them. OVO doesn’t collect them until sometimes 24 hours after the event, so n3rgy is my preferred channel ATM. I think MHHS is clogging up the pipes …
  

*   smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/half-hourly/nnnnnnn?date=2025-08-13 . Adjust by substituting the OVO account no. for nnnnnnn and changing the date as appropriate. Since it’s only one day at a time, this is most useful as a daily routine. n3rgy will retrieve up to 90 days’ data, while Bright will retrieve all data available from the meter, up to 400 days’ worth. 

If the figures quoted on the bill are ex VAT as now appears likely, then it’s quite right for them to be deducted from charges before VAT is calculated, unlike all other discounts and rebates that can appear on bills. The wording of the placeholder text below becomes IMO suspect as well as confusing ...  

We are referring the the beyond free offer. Where we select our chosen two hours and then add it to the calendar to remind us to put the washing on.

Not saving us anything though. 

For July I opted into at least 4hours.

 

There’s no need to guess what hours you joined in for, or what energy you used during those hours.

The Free Energy dates and hours you can get from the app, it lists all of the dates that you actually joined up for.
The kwh usage for those hours you can get from the half-hour electricity usage on you online account or in the app.

I've now done a spreadsheet for my own hours/usage and (after playing about with possible options and tariffs) I've concluded the following:

To calculate your Beyond Free Energy credit:
They are using a maximum of 1kWh free per hour selected.
They are using your own tariff rate, ex-VAT.
(Don’t forgrt that if you are on a variable tariff the rate changed on 1st July)

My sheet calculated credits do not quite match the actual credits I've been given, June and July are respectively 2-pence and 1-pence different.
However I'm putting that down to the fact that OVO will be using 3-decimal places for kWh figures whereas I'm only using 2-DPs, which could easily explain the difference.

For what it's worth here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet with my Free Energy progress to date:

 

Sorry where are you finding how much you used for those hours?  I know what I have opted in for as the app tells me, and I save to my cslender
 

I can’t see that level of detail in the app

Look under Usage. You can select any day going back a long time. Below the bar chart, click View as table to see the figures the chart is based on.  I had a free hour on Sunday 10-11; this is what I see in the table, having had a luxurious lie-in and having delayed my morning shower for a few hours:
  

[Some might say the table’s upside down ...]

Firedog has show how you can get them in the app.

Personally I get then from my online account though.
I prefer the bigger screen, and it’s easier to cut/paste them into a spreadsheet or document on the same computer if/when I want to do that.

Login to you account and select ‘Usage’ on the left.
Change to ‘Day’ and ‘Electricity’.
You can use the arrrows to change days (Tip- if you are looking for past months then switch into ‘Month’ and change it, then switch back to ‘Day’ when you are in the month you want).
The half hourly figures are in the list underneath the bar-chart.

Alternatively you can hover your cursor on one of the bars on the chart and it will show the usage for that half-hour:

Thanks all, it seems like there is definitely something wrong with our meter possibly the time isn’t set quite right.

Take Tuesday 8th July we had free hours at 9am-10 and 9pm-10pm

we definitely didn’t use much electricity between 7am and 7.30, the washing machine wouldn’t have been turned on till 8.30 at the earliest as this is when I get back from nursery drop offs.

Likewise 17.30-18.00 we wouldn’t have been using the electricity as this is when I finish work and go to pick up from nursery.

so we don’t start showers etc. till 18.45 or cooking dinner till 19.15 once in bed as he gets dinner at nursery.

seems like the time is 1-1.5hrs out 

4.26 kWh seems an awful lot to be using in half an hour at 7 o’clock in the morning. It’s the sort of usage you might expect to see if someone took a really long electric shower, or perhaps two more reasonable ones. I don’t think a washing machine could use so much, even if it were set to boil.  The same applies to the 17:30 figure: there would have to be something drawing ~8 kW to rack up 4.24 kWh in half an hour. It’s normally only heating equipment that is so power-hungry, although nowadays it could also be an electric vehicle having its battery charged. I think you’d have mentioned that.

As you noticed, there’s no sign of any attempt to use more than usual at 9 o’clock, morning or evening. We can’t see the date in your screenshot - you’re sure you’ve got the right one?  

Yeah we don’t have an electric vehicle, or electric heating (and it’s summer anyway). We have a water tank that uses gas, our shower is set to 6min max.

i think actually that might be the usage for the water tank being heated up by gas, which would make sense. 

just looked at my usage for yesterday, another day we had free hours between 9am and 10am and no usage all day, is showing up. I even jotted down in notes when I thought likely to be having high usage so I could look back at it, to see if reflected. 

so definitely an issue with the meter sending recordings, perhaps signal dropping in and out.

Yeah we don’t have an electric vehicle, or electric heating (and it’s summer anyway). We have a water tank that uses gas, our shower is set to 6min max.

 

its just doesn’t make any sense what could even be happening at that time.

 

just looked at my usage for yesterday, another day we had free hours between 9am and 10am and no usage all day, is showing up. I even jotted down in notes when I thought likely to be having high usage so I could look back at it, to see if reflected. 
so definitely an issue with the meter sending recordings.

 

and a bit more investigation, something is definitely going wrong…. Some days is 0.00kw for hours at a time all day, even though the fridge/freezer will be on. And I’m working froM home everyday so lights are on, my screen is on (I do use a laptop)

It would only be an electric shower that used that amount of energy. 

That’s quite normal. It can be 24 hours before a days’ data are retrieved and made available on the website. The one hour’s-worth of data you saw there belongs to the last hour of the previous day when using GMT. The whole energy industry works in GMT all the year round, but times are converted to BST for the convenience (or sometimes confusion) of customers like us.

You should try and track down what it is that is drawing so much power 07:00-08:00 and 17:30-19:00. Your In-Home Display (IHD) should alert you when something big starts up, with perhaps a red light and a scary number. If that sort of consumption is happening every day, it could be costing you £60 a month. Let us know if you need help with the detective work.

Your IHD should also show you the most recent energy usage up to last complete hour before now as it is directly connected to your smart meter whereas, as ​@Firedog said, data collection services only pick up the information every 24 hours or thereabouts. There may also be a processing and display delay depending on who your energy supplier is.

​@ctify are those charts for gas or electricity ?

I was wondering that myself, but the last two posted show it clearly.

They are total use, both electricity and gas, it says so at the top of the pages.

​@ctify In your app be sure to select Electricity on the usage page so that it only shows your electricty use:

Then when you view the chart it will say at the top that it’s your electricity usage only:

​@Nukecad I don’t know anything about gas. If the 4.26 kWh figure was largely gas, bearing in mind that ctify says there was no big electricity consumption at the time, would that have been converted from m³ using an average calorific value? So something like 0.37 m³ had been recorded in the half-hour from 07:00 to 07:30? Is that likely? Or even possible?

I’m not sure just what figure they use for the volume to kWhconversion initially, but it must be an average CV at least to start with and then gets corrected later when the actual CV is known. (Borne out by posts of user puzzlement at usage figures changing days later).

As we are in summer then if the gas heating is still on, but off at the timer overnight then a spike in gas use first thing in the morning and maybe another in the evening as things cool again could be expected.

My own gas heating is on timer to come on at 07:00 and off at 22:00, but it isn’t doing much at all because its summer.

This may be a good example of 2-gas spikes from last Saturday.
You can see the spike at 07:00 as the boiler timer comes on in the morning and the gas CH fires up to take away the overnight chill.
Then there’s another spike at around 19:00 so maybe the boiler fired again as the day was cooling?
Although TBH it looks to me more like I had a shower across the half hour change starting just before 19:00, (I’ll use just over 3kWh of gas for a longish shower).and then the lower usage just after that is me cooking and then washing the dishes.

You can actually see it all better with the online account on a bigger screen.
(Note to self, next time you’re in the app try turning the phone sideways).

Just as a contrast to the above this is from March when it was colder outside so the boiler/heating was on and off all day to keep the indoor temperature at 19-20 C.

The extra tall spike at 15:30 would be due to shower, yes I often shower mid-afternoon (and then go to the pub).

PS. I’ve worked out that, for me at least, having the heating off overnight and that initial spike at 07:00 cost less than leaving the heating running all night.

Hi,

so to clear things up, it is definitely the gas that causes the spike (added a pic of our gas as well, highlighted is the 1hr30its on in evenings to heat the water tank). We don’t have a combi boiler, just water tank heated by gas and I’ve looked up the timer is 30min at 7am

1hr30 at 5.30pm… 

Definitely not heating coming on, we’ve turned this off completely for the summer. 
 

looking at solely electricity it looks like we must have signal issues some days (when we get hours with no usage) but on a day it does work, looks more like this. 

but I sat and actually looked back over July electricity data, the free hours that I’d put into my calender, which was 7hours. But based on the data that equaled just over 2kw @22.23kwh unit rate so 44.5p, so the July bill is incorrect as that was  credit 0.8p from beyond- 2hours free electricity.

let’s see if it’s more accurate for August. There was nothing in June but that was the first month we had a smart meter, so perhaps the 2hours we had selected from the options in the last week of June, just hadn’t had the chance to register in the systems.