Insufficient Weekday readings for Power Move, even though my meter is sending readings

Typically Energy Suppliers and 3rd parties use slightly different mechanisms and timing for getting the 30 min consumption data.

N3ergy call for data every couple of hours. That is why you see in day data on Loop for example. Hence if the data doesn't get to them for whatever reason, they often but not always get it soon after.

Suppliers typically schedule to get data sometime close after midnight, then if they don't get it after a period will often call for data again. This mechanism of noticing and then getting missing data is potentially an area for improvement for OVO.

OVO say this

"We receive readings in bulk at the end of each day, and each reading is timestamped"

For whatever reasons this means we regularly see posters, including me in the past, every month saying they can see 30 min consumption data on the 3rd party websites but not with OVO. OVO currently can't often match the 3rd parties in terms of timeliness as we have seen every month.

It probably means ovo could do with reviewing their process if they want to match N3ergy etc. Just depends on how high a priority it is for them, i am sure OVO have a long list of priorities.

As a starter it would help if ovo allowed more time for 30min  consumption figures to appear in customers accounts for the Power Move product.

I think it will be even more important when all suppliers have to offer Octopus Agile type tariff. I think it is debatable at least whether OVO could launch an Agile type tariff without further work.

As a snapshot the government said circa 9% of smart meters had some sort of permanent or temporary communication issue at the end of March 2023. 

Weird, my friend had the same issue...  did you have the same issue in October and November? If so, I think I may know the answer.

Sorry, I’ve not got much to add.

There are two different problems, and this is my guess at the two scenarios:

1. OVO requests usage data from DCC sometime after midnight each day. Sometimes, those data will be incomplete (missing the figure for one or more Hh slots), in which case OVO’s automated systems will try again to retrieve the data. This will in most cases succeed.
2. On occasion, OVO fails to request usage data, e.g. because there is a hold on the account for some other reason - meter readings are missing, or billing has gone awry, for example. 

We have seen periods when many customers are missing usage data for days at a time. It happened in October 2022, and it happened again this year. I can’t imagine why this happens, but back-filling those consumers’ usage tables seems to involve manual intervention. I suspect that it’s only those who complain and persist that eventually benefit from manual intervention, while those who remain silent may be left with holes in their records. Manual intervention is expensive in terms of the resources available to undertake it.

Bottom line: if you’re in scenario (2), squeak if you really need some grease.
 

PS

It’s my experience that third-party data collectors - specifically n3rgy.com - won’t rest until they have all the usage data that DCC holds. They even tell me if there are holes: 

The ‘first period’ is a date in July 2022, while the ‘last period’ was a couple of hours ago. The table shows only a two-hour period when my supply was disconnected while a new meter was installed. Otherwise, there are data for every half-hour in the past 15 months. If this organization (actually part of our friends SMS, who own many of the smart meters we use) can do it, OVO should also be able to do it.

All interesting stuff… billing has gone awry, for example.

Yes indeed, I guess billing is the one key area that differentiates OVO from, say, 3nergy in terms of, say, fail-safe interventions or fall-back provisions over missing data which may well be somewhat clumsy or arbitrary methods just because they have to be “safe” and of course wide-ranging over many thousands of customers.. And it just so happens that I started to lose my own data more or less at the point where my September monthly bill was being totted up, although I don’t think there was anything anomalous about the bill…tariff change was happening at the start of October, of course, but I’m still on fixed tariff for another six months. 
 

Oh well, everything’s been behaving very well again since 1st November, so fingers crossed!

Many thanks again…
 

It is a complete wast of time this energy credit if you use below such and such. My will for this month was just over £40 and most of that is standing charges as i have not been home much as i have been looking after my mother at hers and i still failed to hit the target. I am going to move myself to another company 

OVO need to send an engineer to check your meters are installed and functioning correctly otherwise they cannot possibly bill you correctly or accurately.

Moving elsewhere won’t make Standing Charges much lower.

There are a couple of constraints, without which the system would probably break for everybody:

1. For a day to qualify, OVO must receive 48 half-hourly usage figures. If there is even only one half-hour’s data missing, the whole day’s data are discarded.
2. For a day to qualify, OVO must receive its half-hourly usage figures before 1PM. 

You can check (1) by looking at the table on the Day usage page online. Any gaps there render the day ineligible for the reward calculation.

(2) is not so easy to check unless you look for the data at hourly intervals. At the moment (11:30AM on 3 April), there’s no sign of my usage figures for yesterday. I’ve not given up hope yet. 

Hi @Denzo1965, if you’ve been away from home quite a bit, that won’t have helped your Power Move, I’m afraid.  It doesn’t reward low usage as such: your usage will have been quite flat and quite low over each 24-hr weekday as you’ve been away caring for your mother. What Power Move rewards is when weekday peak hours usage gets below a certain proportion of your overall weekday usage.  It’s that weekday proportion that’s the key thing, not whether or not the overall 24 hour weekday usage can be classed as low.

Hope you and your mother are doing well…you could always have a fresh go at Power Move this month?  Just don’t forget to daily (or nearly every day, at any rate) check your OVO account pages for your half-hourly weekday usage figures…it’s important to keep track of those to see where your patterns of usage could be maximised (i.e. that crucial weekday percentage). And you don’t have to be at home to check your online account if you or your Mother have a suitable phone or device that you can log on with.

Hi @mozzie55,

I’m sorry to hear that you missed out our your Power Move credit this month. Unfortunately the trial does have strict criteria regarding the reporting of your usage, you can find out more on the Power Move FAQ page.

I would recommend carrying out a smart meter health check. This will help ensure it doesn’t happen again. If you are having any further issues our support team is always on hand to help look into this further with you and book any site visits necessary. 

I hope this helps!