OVO Beyond 2 hours’ worth free electricity

I also flagged it today - worryingly, the operative claimed that it said 0.00 because that was the charge. Clearly unaware that my understanding is that it should show as a credit. I honestly couldn’t be bothered to argue…

That £0.00 thing is just the subscription that activates the system - you can ignore that for the most part. The real credits are applied separately as a dedicated line entry.

I’ve been able to take advantage of the fact my account is managed by the Priority Services/Priority Support team due to being on the Priority Services Register. Through that, I was able to reach the right person pretty rapidly - someone in the team overseeing this promotion has been alerted and are investigating directly.

They intend to fix it for everyone at once so you shouldn’t need to get in touch again.

Hi ​@w5moss 

As I posted above the T&C’s state that you will see your credit for each month. on your next months bill.

 It even tells you as an example that the credit for May will be paid in June:

6.1 Electricity used in the Free electricity hours
selected will be calculated and paid back as a
bill credit,  Your bill Credit will normally appear
on your electricity account in the following
month, for example May will be paid in June,
although it could occasionally take longer to
credit your account.

As we are only 3-days into June it’s probably a bit early to see it yet.

Youve issued a bill for June - first slot was 11 May - it’s not a draft but a final bill  - it says 0.00 

I haven’t issued anything, I don’t work for OVO I’m a customer who helps out on this forum.

You can’t possibly have a final bill for your June usage - we are only 3-days into June.

Are you meaning something like this, which will be my June bill - but not for another 20 days.

Things will change before then, including any credits for Free Electricit and Power Move being added.

At the moment those credits are both showing as zero, but will change to show credits in the coming days/weeks so that they are included before the bill becomes ‘Pending’ in 20 days, and the ‘Final’ shortly after that.

I am so sorry - I fired that out thinking you were an employee moderator. No the bill I refer to is the one before (ending mid May ) so is a final bill but just shows 0.00 credit. I feel OVO pushed this scheme out when it’s really not ready from a software perspective. I have not seen anyone comment who has mentioned any credit on a bill yet, though I’d love to be proved wrong on this

There will not be anyone who has a ‘Free Electricity’ credit showing yet.

The bill that you have ending mid May is for your usage from mid-April to mid-May.

That won't include a full month of free electricity events; they only started in at the start of May.

I think that you are expecting to see the credits on a weekly basis, but it works monthly not weekly.

In other words the credit will be added monthly not weekly.

So the credits you have earned in May should show on the next bill that you will get mid-June.

Then the credits you earn in June should show on the bill that you get mid-July.

And so on.

Hey ​@w5moss 

I checked in with the team who confirmed they haven’t yet started applying credits these should begin to be added this week. When they’re added, they'll appear as follows: ‘Beyond - 2 hours of free electricity’.

What you can see at the moment is correct as our volunteers have suggested.

If you’ve got any other questions do let us know.

Thanks for a bit of clarity 👍

Just to note that the Free Energy credit that I earned in May has shown up on my account today:

From the amount creduted there (£1.38) I calculate that I got just just over 6 kWh free, which is about right as sometimes I couldn’t use a full kWh in each of the chosen hours.

I have £0.81 - no indication of which week, but would make sense if it was the first week of 2 sessions

That will not be for just 2-sessions, unless your electricity rate ex.Vat is over 40p per kWh then it can’t be. (There’s a max of 1 kWh per session).

The amount will be for a full month, ie a possible of 8 kWh total free electricity.

Have you checked on your account just how much energy in kWh you used during your chosen hours?
If you can remember which hours you chose of course.

The calculation will then be:

kWh used in the chosen hours (max of 1kWh each hour) * your unit rate ex.VAT = Credit.

I don’t know your unit rate but if we say it’s 27p per kWh before VAT then 3 kWh * 0.27 = £0.81

That suggests to me that you have probably used a full kWh onliy in 3 of the possible 8 hours that you could have chosen.
(or maybe used only 0.5 kWh in 6 of them?, or used 0.375 kWh in each of the 8 slots?).

Did you actually choose all 8 slots that were possible?
Have you actually been using heavier usage appliances/equipment during ALL 8 of the slots that you could have chosen?
 

Hey ​@Nukecad & ​@w5moss,

Good to see both of you are now receiving your free electricity credits on your bills.  Remember, there are still several opportunities to benefit from this through August.

Could I please request that the hourly slots offered each week do not always include 2 on Sunday Morning, between 10 and 12.  Some of us are busy on Sunday mornings, so I can’t use these slots.  Please can you vary it a bit.  How about Sunday afternoons?  Or early on Sunday.  

Hi ​@w5moss and ​@Nukecad, am only now catching up with your posts…just a reminder that if you want to check which “free electricity” slots you’ve booked in previous month(s), there’s a helpful “View your previous slots” link within the View Upcoming Slots page. 

Hi. I'm not sure if I'm looking in the right place, but I've signed up for Beyond free electricity and have claimed 10 hours so far. The info on the Ovo website says you will see a credit on your bill, but all it details is 2hours and a zero amount. This doesn't really tell me much.  Am I doing wrong?

Phil 

Hi ​@Dellara,  you are indeed looking in the right place.

The actual credits on the bill will always have a “lag” of a month, so in effect that might seem more like a 2 months’ lag!  For example, my own latest bill dated 4th June (i.e. for period 5th May - 4th June) didn’t show credit for any of my six May slots…they weren’t even mentioned in fact.  So I need to wait until 4th July to see any credit for the May slots.

Depending on your own bill date, I think this is similar to what you’re seeing, except that by now at the end of June the system has had “enough time” to show that’s it’s registered 2 of your slots? You’re very unlikely to have used absolutely zero electricity in all your chosen slots that you’ve shown, so don’t worry, I’m guessing that you need to check back in your next bill!

But in the meantime, you can check out the “latest charges” link in OVO Beyond (your current charging period) that you’re now in which shows your current status between your last bill date and the next bill that’ll eventually present itself.  You will probably have some of your free hours showing there as a credit, let us know how you get on, all the best…

Thank you ​@waltyboy . I'm still struggling to find the latest usage. There are no credits showing.  I'm definitely using as I make sure the hot tub is on for the period. 

Phil 

Hi. I'm not sure if I'm looking in the right place, but I've signed up for Beyond free electricity and have claimed 10 hours so far. The info on the Ovo website says you will see a credit on your bill, but all it details is 2hours and a zero amount. This doesn't really tell me much.  Am I doing wrong?

 

Phil 

 

I have been doing it since it started, my June bill to 27/6/2025 shows, beyond 2 hours of free electricty £0.27p, nothing on the other bills.   Looks like a gimic to me. 😆 They say 1 hour of free electric, but its a max of 1KW per hour not  one actual hour of free electric, ☹️ unless I got it wrong. They should change the advert to get 2KW hours and not 2 hours of free electricty.

You should see separate entries with the specific credits.

If you cannot find them, please talk to OVO Support and they’ll dig into it.

So you are complaining about getting something for free?

PS. It's semantics, but that's marketing people for you. (Politicians do it too - use words to make you think the words say what they don't really say).

It does say ‘2 hours of free electricity’ and not ‘2 hours totally free’, there is a difference when you stop and think about what it actually says.

You do get electricty for free during the 2 chosen hours, up to 1 kWh worth in each hour.

Hi ​@pete 1, you say I have been doing it since it started, my June bill to 27/6/2025 shows, beyond 2 hours of free electricty £0.27p, nothing on the other bills.  

Apart from your bill for 28th May-27th June, there won’t be anything on your “other” bills: your 27th June bill shows free electricity credited to your account during May.  Your 28th April - 27th May bill cannot show any free electricity slots credited, as the scheme didn’t start any credits until May. Your next bill on 27th July will show any credits earned during June.
 

Of course, it’s worth remembering that depending on the dates of the slots that you choose and the date in the month that you’re normally billed, one or two credits might be carried over a two month period rather than a delay in payment of only one month.  
 

You can always keep a check on which slots you’ve actually claimed by clicking on the link “View your previous slots” in your Beyond free electricity pages, and then check those slots for yourself in your energy usage pages; and indeed, as your post does mention, you can’t be credited for more than 1 kWh of electricity in any “free” slot. 

Sigh… I feel like I’ve said this before…

The whole idea of these schemes is ultimately about balancing the grid by encouraging folks to be flexible. It’s a form of gamification and it’s similar to one (or more) of the things that motivate me to help out here - do X thing, get Y reward.

It just seems as if almost no-one will participate in such demand shifting schemes if there isn’t something in it to incentivise them...

Hi Blastoise. My only comment is that isn't very flexible (for me) if I'm offered very limited times and the same one keeps coming up every week, that is between 10 and 12 on a Sunday.
 

I was kind of excited about the scheme, but I'm managing my expectations until I see written down what my savings have been. This is the official letter I had from Ovo after I emailed them. They actually rang me up and gave me this information, but whilst I do appreciate them actioning it, by the time I went through and answered all the security questions that seemed to take half the call I can't help feeling it was a waste of time. Basically I was told what was in the email. They could have just sent that. Ie you'll need to wait. Add to that the ‘how did we do?’ email follow up on the phone call.  Even more of a waste of my time and theirs. 
 

Perhaps I'm just a miserable old bugger today!
 

Phil