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I have got my feedback for this months Powermove and I’ve made it to 6.94%, i.e £5. I’ve never had anything other than the maximum before. During 6-9 Monday to Friday we do not cook with electricty, we do not use the washing machine or tumble drier, not even the iron or the toaster and we minimise the light. We use everything outside those hours, so how, in the name of all that is holy, can we not have made it to a £10 discount? We go to great efforts to do this, because we believe it’s constructive, but either I’ve got this wrong or OVO are conning us.

For those shouting "Con" - please think about what you are saying.

How can something that doesn't cost you anything to take part and gives you a chance of earning a reward be a 'con'?

To be "conned" you have to be losing something, and the ‘conner’ gaining something.

Fair enough you may try but not be able to reach the target, not everybody can reach the target, but it hasn't cost you anything if you want to try.
Even if your smart meter has not sent  enough readings so you can’t then take part that month it hasn’t cost you amything.

Neither does OVO gain anything from it - in fact it costs them to run and costs them more if/when you do earn a reward.

Call it “dissappointing” if you don’t or can’t meet the targets.
Call it “frustrating” if your Smart Meter plays up and doesn’t send the required readings.
But calling it a “con” is simply incorrect.

Fair enough, Nukecad I agree the use of language is incorrect, and I wrote it at a time when I’d just got the result, when I felt I couldn’t do much more to achieve the highest tier as I have done every time before. Seemed it was unachievable. At the same time I’d just checked my account - nearly £600 in credit and they still increased my direct debit a few months ago (I think in all the years I’ve been with OVO my account only got to about £7 in debit for a couple of days) which I didn’t mind so much until they ended the interest reward. Overall I was feeling a bit “conned”. But you are right… frustrated is probably the correct word for me, because there’s so much I like about them as a supplier.

It’s worth saying this again though for the others. There’s no con here and definitely no scam here.

It’s just unfortunate that this doesnt work out for every type of customer.

So far I think I’ve hit every power move target by the maximum. I was getting the £15 & now I’m getting the £10. I’m a low user anyway, & in the summer I’m an even lower user as I have solar panels with battery storage so most of the day when the sun is shining it’s powering everything I use & in the evening the battery kicks in. So actually it’s quite hard to show that I’m using less power in peak times. 
What I do though is to make sure that when I do any cooking, I do it in bulk & either freeze portions or pop them in the fridge for another day. That way if I’ve had to cook in peak time at least I’m effectively halving or thirding the power I’d use. Mostly I try to cook out of peak times though, & now weekends are OK to use I do a few batches at the weekend, & also do my washing then if the weather’s good for hanging outside on the line. 
I also make one big pot of tea out of peak time & pop it into a flask to drink in the evening. 
The tv doesn’t go on in peak times (is there actually anything worth watching?). If I want to watch catch up I watch it on my laptop that I’ve charged during non-peak times. I honestly don’t think I’m missing out on anything.
All in all I’m very pleased with power move because the £10 is actually a sizeable chunk off my bill. It can take a little bit of thought to get a routine going especially when peak times change but once in the groove it’s ok. 👍 

 

I also bulk cook and freeze to save power and for convenience. It’s a great idea. I also do this out of peak times. Being retired we can always eat our main meal at lunchtime. I’m loathed to stream more than I do already because streamin, downloading and the general power consumption is massive in comparasion to watching through the ariel or recording and watching later. I’m surprised that more of a thing isn’t made of reducing the consumption of the internet, to be honest. Great, constructive comment though, thanks!  

All that hard work’s no good if they say they can’t read your Smart Meter though.

I absolutely agree. It’s really strange if you can see your usage online but they say they can’t see your meter reading! 😮

I was going to ask whether it’s a WiFi or signal sending problem of some sort but if you can see your usage online & they’re sending you a bill every month then something is apparently getting through. Perhaps the problem is that the data isn’t going out half-hourly, just hourly - although if you can see your half-hourly usage online then something is definitely wrong at their end.
I’d absolutely insist on them coming out to have a look at your end & fix it if it’s possible, or put in a complaint to get it sorted their end - after all, how do you know whether the data they’re getting/ using is accurate? Is it actually your data????

First time I’ve missed the max since the start of Power Move… 6.53% missed by 0.03 - £5 not £10 - literally just using base power between 6-9pm - I’m of the opinion it’s not possible to hit this target unless there are more than 8 weekend days in the month. OVO must be desperate to save on the scheme. Will see what happens in Autumn challenge iinit’s not back to £15 pm and a realistic target I’m OUT! 

Totally possible we used just 3.73% in peak hours this month. June we used 5.5% so that was before weekends were taken in to account but the threshold was higher. Thought it would be a bit of a struggle but we have done nothing different, I always do the laundry at the weekend anyway which never counted before. Dishwasher is never on at peak time and our EV is never charged peak time but is quite often charged at weekends which wasnt counted before.  There's normally at least me or my wife working from home a few days a week and we're done by 4'ish so that's extra power used during off peak, laptops, screens etc. Focus on using MORE off peak to reduce the proportion of peak useage, this is the key. It's all about keeping generation as low as possible at peak times to help generation and grid capacity it's NOT an environmental scheme total usage is nothing to do with it. You can be a really high user, we're quite high as we have an EV, and you'll make the target where as a low user won't it's all about the ratio of peak compared to off peak use. 

Hi Fancyabrew. Interesting stuff from you. I notice you are charging an EV out of hours, so I think that will be quite big and make it easier for you to hit the Powermove target. Just a thought?

Yep it totally does

We’ve not had a failure of the meter readings (yet) but I’m alarmed to read about the many cases when this has happened. I would be very frustrated having inconvenienced ourselves for a small reward only to find the system for getting meter readings to the right place at the right time had failed. Knowing that this can happen is enough to put me off wanting to take part in future.

If I were OVO I would want to do something about this urgently - justifiably frustrated customers is a bad thing. The obvious answer is to assume in the customers’ favour when the fault is with the supplier. I realise it is probably outside OVO’s direct control but that’s all part of being a retailer - they should pass the cost on to the faulty party.

Setting up a system to pay a reward to customers and then claiming, without any evidence in the online account, that the customer has not met the terms of the reward is not good behaviour and creates customers who think they are being conned.

It’s interesting, I kicked this lot off when I’d just failed to make to the top tier and couldn’t see how I could do more than I was. The whole idea of this is great and getting that understanding about using your power outside of peak times is spot on. I’d always made the top tier and struggled to understand why I hadn’t this time, but it would appear the only way I’d get to the top tier is to maybe switch the fridge freezer off 6-9, and I’m not sure of the overall wisdom of that, or maybe use more electricity out of hours, but that would seem ridiculous. The only person who fed back that this is easy was the guy that charges his Electric Vehicle outside 6-9, and clearly he is going to be putting a far higher burden on the grid overall anyway. Not sure what I achieved with this, but warm thanks to all of you that took the time to feed back on my original post. Cheers! Nick in Worcester

I disagree, it is a con because OVO are selective with the truth. If a user meets all the criteria for energy saving between certain hours and has, up until then, been told that their Smart meter is operating correctly and is then told that OVO can’t access the information then the user is being deprived of a refund which is rightly theirs. i.e. being overcharged. I have been with OVO since the days of Atlantic Power - they were an excellent company, refunding long term customers. Then they became OVO who paid good interest on positive balances on accounts - that has all gone since the absorption of SSE domestic accounts. It has been downhill all the way and shows no signs of changing direction.

Unless I've used the washing machine and dryer I usually turn my fridge/freezer off between 6 and 9pm. During that time the fridge temperature will rise from 4 to 7 or 8c and the freezer section from -18 to -13 or -14c. Both sections rapidly return to normal and I've never noticed any problems with the contents of either.

Daily usage seldom goes above 4kwh, unless, of course, I've used the tumble dryer or been baking bread! 

I disagree, it is a con because OVO are selective with the truth. If a user meets all the criteria for energy saving between certain hours and has, up until then, been told that their Smart meter is operating correctly and is then told that OVO can’t access the information then the user is being deprived of a refund which is rightly theirs. i.e. being overcharged. I have been with OVO since the days of Atlantic Power - they were an excellent company, refunding long term customers. Then they became OVO who paid good interest on positive balances on accounts - that has all gone since the absorption of SSE domestic accounts. It has been downhill all the way and shows no signs of changing direction.

Again… How is this a con or “selective truth”? As we’ve already pointed out, you don’t lose anything and it doesn’t cost you anything in these cases - you simply don’t get the key to unlock the treasure that’s in the chest. That’s literally the only penalty, if you can even call it that.

The data has to reach OVO by 1pm the following day to allow enough time for processing. If it’s not there by the deadline, it’s too late and can’t be number crunched for Power Move.

You are NOT being deprived of a “refund” in these cases and this is absolutely NOT overcharging cuz you’re still paying the original rates on your contract anyway. If you have proof otherwise, please share it - otherwise it’s something I can easily smash out of the park.

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