How didn't I meet the Power Move target when I wasn't even at home for 2 weeks?

No one seems to stand a chance this winter!  2 weeks not in the property and no reward... I am shocked 

@saundersg21 As I understand it its about percentage reduction - so if you used nothing or practically nothing because you were away you wont make the reduction. Whilst away what you were using outside of peak will be the same as what you were using at peak time (4-7) 

If the same amount is used every half hr which is what you should have done while you were away then it is precisely 12.5% so if the remainder of your time at home you would still need to reduce your power in the time 4 - 7  pm compared to the rest of the day otherwise you wont meet.

Hi @decroisic and @Ria Sorry, I hadn’t seen your replies before I posted!! My fault for typing such long-winded posts!! 

Ah thank you for full explanation. No  point me taking part then as work from home and use very low items 4 to 7!

Shame but guess can't win them all!

Look at your half hourly usage and see how that compares to rest of the day. I either made my dinner at lnchtime or after 7pm and being a low user i thought i would struggle but that was enough of a change to meet the challenge. 

I do any washing in morning which i generally did anyway. Remember weekends/bank holidays dont count either.

Hi @alinbongo54 as you’re very low usage 4-7, it’s going to be tricky, however: you could try tweaking things around the edges, such as moving some weekend tasks to weekdays during the week, if you can take a break from your work at home? Maybe like a couple of washloads, or a few roast dinners prepared before the key 4-7 slots?
 

Anything to make that crucial 4-7 slot look good compared to the rest of the weekday!!

There's still a chance @alinbongo54  - I’m a low user and work from home too but i do manage to meet or just by the skin of my teeth meet the target. I live alone so probably easier as its only me to please but between 4 - and 7 I use as little as possible so no kettle, no heating, no cooking, only 1 light and laptop on battery for work & then after work just tv. How I manage to meet target is to make sure any high powered stuff is Mon - Fri outside of 4 - 7. So washing machine, lawn mower, any diy tools etc , only used M-F outside of 4-7.  Charging stuff (phone, laptop, elec tooth brush etc - full charging M-F  outside of 4 - 7 with as little as possible charging on weekends.  Hope that's of some help to you

Funny they exclude batteries from this deal.... Seems to be about the only way to achieve it reliably without sucking all the joy out your life 

Thank you all for tips, I'll move all my weekend tasks to the weekday mornings!!  

I clearly had not understood the finer details so have really appreciated these tips tonight!

Hi @Terryd 

As long as you shift heavy usage from the 4-7 slot into any other weekday slot you should be OK: no need to sit in the dark or cold, though, from 4-7, that really would be miserable!

I didn’t know they excluded folk with batteries from this incentive? Could you point me towards the relevant info?

all the best…

Well, it looks like you all managed to figure this one out while I was still eating dinner. For that, you have my thanks.

As for the battery thing, leave that with me and I’ll see if I can dig up those details. If I can’t do it myself, I can ask for help from the forum moderators. What I do know is that the whole idea is not to be using Power Move to make your battery soak up tons of juice and then splurge it out during the Power Move hours, which I think is being done as some kind of anti-cheat.

I can also reveal something to you all. If you keep helping out like this… Something good may happen...

Hi @Blastoise186 Yes, I’ve been thinking that charging a battery outside the Power Move critical segment, and then using said battery during the 4-7 segment could well be an effective way of shifting grid purchase away from the weekday peak segment into other segments of the weekday? 
 

OK, it might not be shifting usage of our machinery etc., so perhaps not changing habits as such, or at least not necessarily all our habits at peak times (but we probably wouldn’t want that anyway), but surely it would be contributing to shifting our peak-time grid consumption, which I’d considered the key aim of Power Move?

Makes me worry a bit now about my having suggested in an earlier post the usefulness of a battery…

Thinking about the “going away” problem it might be worth putting your freezer on a timer that turns it off for the 4-7 period. Since you are not there you won’t be opening the freezer so it should not defrost in 3 hours, and the extra work bringing it back up to full freeze again  ought to  reduce your consumption to 12.5% in the relevant period.

I would experiment before going away - turn the freezer off for 1, 2, 3 hours and check the temperature at the end to make sure you don’t loose a freezer-full of food.

This is only a theoretical solution - I’m not suggesting that anyone tries it!

That goes against the spirit of Power Move and probably won’t work. Remember, it’s about moving heavy loads away from peak times, not trying to make a quick buck by turning literally everything off.

I know it goes against the spirit, but then everything that seems to work for those of us who are already doing our bit  for the environment by reducing our grid electrical consumption does. And you can’t do much better at reducing your usage that by not being at home and therefore not using (almost) anything!

@saundersg21 

I am a really low user. Last night i did my usual calculation for Monday's data where i was out practically all day. I got home 6.30 so waited until 7 to cook my dinner and i had tv on as well as lounge light on in the evening, in fact the light went on at 6.30  but not tv and for that day i didnt make the new 13.5% target let alone 12.5% target. Just goes to show you how you being away for 2 wks wouldnt have always helped the challenge, you would still have needed to make less usage in 4 - 7pm compared to rest of the day, to meet the challenge. I will be monitoring my cumulative totals closely to get myself back under the 13.5%!! Im not dipping out on my £15 this month🤣

@saundersg21 

@waltyboy - thought you would like for info

I was home yesterday and decorating, normal day of no washing machine or hoovering. Had dinner in evening started cooking at 7pm. Tv didnt go on til after 7pm but i did have to put a light on at 6.15 which didnt really make much of a difference but my cumulative calculation has now gone from 13.73% to 10.44%

Mon as i said above i was out and didnt need dinner when i got back.  Total day 2.075% and 4 - 7pm 0.285% =13.73%

Tues 2.715% for day and  0.215% for 4 - 7pm = cum 4.79 for day and 0.5 for 4-7pm = 10.44%

Take 0.005 of the figs for the day and also the 4-7pm period (16.00 - 18.30 figs inclusive) then you will be spot on the Ovo email calculation as they work to 3 decimal places not 2.

So just goes to show the only difference in my 2 days was cooking my dinner outside the hours rather than no cooked meal at all, so even with my low usage you can achieve it.

Keeping track daily really helps.

If i wasnt on target i would move something that maybe i was doing at the weekend to outside the hours in the week. Its not that im using more its just that im doing it at a different time which is what the powermove challenge is all about.

Hope this helps

Hi @Ria , just caught up with your post, very interesting stuff: just goes to show how right you are when you say even small shifts from the 4-7 slot can make a really noticeable difference, in fact making the difference between meeting the PowerMove challenge and not meeting it: 13.7% to 10.4% in the two days you cite.

Hope it’s continuing for you? Plus, now the cold weather is just around the corner, we need, if we possibly can to eat warm food and stay warm.

all the best…

Hi @waltyboy 

All on track here, currently 11.12%

Was down at 10.44% but i was out and ran over the 4pm cooking dinner by 10 mins the other day. Knew i wasnt going to last until 7pm and then cook🤣

Hi @Ria Keep up those good stats!

I’m now in my tenth day of no electricity usage stats in my account, so frustrating; but at least from my own monitoring of the IHD and the meter itself (both of which are still reading fine) I have the satisfaction of knowing that so far this month I would have been on target!

all the best…and enjoy your evening meal!

In common with some others, I was away for 2 weeks in September so not using any electricity during this time; but I still failed to reach the target.  It looks pretty much the same for October as I have already been told I am unlikely to hit the target.  This is despite the fact that the only electrical item I run in the afternoon and evening is the TV  - the dishwasher and washing machine are run in the morning when I go to work!  I have no confidence that I will get any credit at all.

Hi @kstride That is very dispiriting, when it’s not clear how we can reduce peak hours  usage further in order to reach the target, don’t get downhearted about it, though, there’s lots of helpful interest from folk on this forum. Even if you find you’re not hitting the required target for October then A) it’s not worth worrying about too much, it’s as much about raising queries in our own minds about our peak usage and seeing how improvements in our usage can possibly be made…if they can’t, then they can’t! B) you’ve already registered for the Sep and Oct Power Move (as I understand things?) so there’s always November and December for you to have a go.

Firstly, though, I’m afraid being away from home has absolutely no bearing on the incentive. You could go away for a month, switching off your electricity at your mains incomer with zero consumption for the month, and you still wouldn’t hit the target. The Power Move incentive is all about comparing your peak 4-7 weekday evening usage with your overall 24 hour weekday usage.  Individual days’ performances don’t especially matter on their own, as all the weekday peak usages are added up at month end, and then compared with all the aggregated weekday total usages, to arrive at a percentage figure. 
 

what this means is that, for this incentive, you have to make your peak weekday  4-7 slot over the month  “look good” compared to all the other 21 hours in your weekday.  It sounds to me like you shouldn’t be far from reaching the target: dishwasher and washing machine run in the morning and only TV in the afternoon and evening? Your ‘fridge and all the other background household stuff like heating and broadband and lighting (reasonable levels!) shouldn’t  impact on the incentive, as presumably they’re not being highly over-used in the crucial weekday 4-7 slot as compared with the other 21 weekday hours?

It’s a bit of a mystery why you’re not hitting the target…you don’t mention kettles, microwaves, ovens, toasters and other cooking and beverage-type stuff.

Remember, weekend usage is “invisible” for the purpose of this incentive, it’s weekdays only.  

The only way you’re going to solve this mystery is to sit down with pencil and paper, go into your OVO account page and add up all your weekday half-hourly usages between 4 and 7PM over, say, a full week (that’ll be 30 slots, in kWh not in £, all added together). While you’re there, see if any of those crucial half hour slots seem to display high usage, and try to work out why.  Next, work out the aggregated 30 total as a percentage of your total 5-day weekday usage for that week.

If you’re feeling chipper, you could work out the whole of October’s weekdays  to date! Although remember your OVO usage account will always lag by a day or so.

It sounds complicated, it really isn’t as bad as it may sound! I’m no more numerate than the next person, and 10 minutes with a calculator (and a cuppa!) should start to arrive at an answer to your puzzling mystery.

Good luck with that, keep us posted on your findings!

I was on holiday from 4th October till 26th October no one in the house. No heating on for 3wks, no cooking,washing or drying for 3 weeks and still never made the savings for October. September was similar with 2 weeks holiday no one in the house for 2 weeks.