We tried so hard the first few months but never achieved it. Apart from sitting in the dark with nothing but the fridge plugged in I don't know what else we could have done to be honest.  

To be honest I have had the same problem on usage I have my TV, fridge freezer plugged in that's it ,might have TV on for a hour in day ,watch it after 6 till around 11, that's it lights maybe 20 mins ,as I have battery lights ,yet I miss my target  ,I am also in a eco friendly building so bills should be cheaper , OVO are terrible for customer service , as i am disabled they have cancelled 9 appointments on me ,even not turning up leaving me waiting in all day , my smart meter doest pick up my gas readings as its to far away so can't get the signal ,told will put in duel meter ,now seems they are having problems with them so they are on hold ,my friend pays less with british gas she is in most of the day were as i am out , i have spent nearly 3 months in hospital still my bills are higher than my friend, thinking of switching to be honest ,then they constantly email asking for gas readings ,knowing i can't read the meter as it is on the floor at the back of the building ,so i can't get down to it ,also i am on there priority list due to medical reasons .

I signed up to power move and tried really hard to move my power, but as a low user I wasn't credited anything. I'm no longer bothered to even try. I was on holiday last week so only essentials were switched on ie. fridge and freezer and nighttime security light. I was credited with the grand sum of 2p !

@Vickiplum wrong Power Move - you’re talking about Power Move Flex.

I'm afraid you need to be a regular user of electricity during the weekday and weekends and reduce your use during the 3 hour power move window to make it work. A level or low user won't work as there is no significant change in power usage.

Well sometimes it is hard to do this. l work funny times. they are only five hour shifts. mostly on a daily basic and my husband is diabetic so have to be careful with his eating times as well. if l don’t achieve then it’s not the end of the world more to worry about then that. do see where you are coming from.

The Power Move Flex notifications give too little warning for you to plan. I'd already done my washing load on Economy 7 rate yesterday so missed the one thing I could have put into the Power up slot. It is almost impossible for us low user to get any advantage unfortunately. I wish they'd take a leaf out of Octopus' book. They offer 'free power' periods! My friend told me they had.a 3 hour window recently for no charge!!

Just a suggestion for Ianm1964. Try taking a picture of your meter display using a camera phone and selfie stick. This may help you give readings to the supplier. Many meters for a lot of us are difficult to read and taking a picture then reading it may be a solution for you.

That’s part of the reason for the scheme: to see whether consumers can take action with short notice. If terrorists were to sever one of the submarine cables bringing energy from an offshore wind farm, or perhaps from Norway, it could have catastrophic effects on the national grid unless the demand could quickly be reduced. The biggest reductions could probably be furnished by large-scale industrial consumers, but that might take too long. Similarly with sudden large increases in generation: if the Met Office issues a warning about high winds tomorrow morning, it might help to mitigate the effect of a sudden surge in available power if millions of households could all switch their electric heaters on to coincide with the increase. Again, the quicker we can react, the better.

Blastoise186 It’s still of no use to me, whatever it’s called

Hi @Jen horn,

I’m sorry to hear this.

I’ve asked the team about this and they’ve responded saying:

“Our consumption data collection and calculation process previously ran from 1pm each day, collecting consumption data from the day before. We've since identified that some data now doesn't return until later in the day, after the calculation process has been completed, so for the day before you may have been classed as 'no-data' and is why some of you may have seen in your progress update that we don't have enough data to calculate your progress.

We've now moved our process to run later in the day, and have been testing to ensure this pulls through as much data as possible, there will be some circumstances still where we couldn't retrieve any data for a genuine reason, however the tests have seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of customers with 'no-data' we've had so far in October.

At the end of October we will calculate rewards and look to pull through data from the first 2 weeks of October that have previously been flagged as not having any. We will only use this data for your end of month results if it positively impacts your peak %, e.g. you now earn a reward or go up a tier, if it would negatively impact your end of month results then we will honour the more positive result and reward.”

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

During the winter period last year we achieved maximum credit each month and found it easy to achieve. However we failed completely during the summer months and gave up even trying. Now that  it’s winter again and the time slot has reverted to 4-7pm it’s a doddle once again. We eat either before 4pm or after 7pm or cook a meal completely using a gas hob depending on our menu choice of the day. As our house is so dark and fewer sunny days we are using a lot more power during the day during the winter plus the use of a dehumidifier so it’s easy to just switch it all for 3 hours. Our high energy usage kitchen light is replaced by a powerful block torch if we need to do anything in kitchen during that time and we fill a 1.5 litre flask with boiling water at 3.55pm.  All our laundry is done during weekday daytime and the dishwasher run overnight. Luckily we can be totally flexible. 

Time to ditch it for a more efficient one? The light in the kitchen may well be the one that’s normally on for longest, and you can get the same amount of light out of a modern LED for a fraction of the cost of other types.

Not worth it, I don’t spend much time in the kitchen; and ‘high’ is relative. I like spotlights in the kitchen but the rest of the house is so low energy that it’s only high by comparison.

Fair enough, but I have lots of really bright 3.5W spotlights in my kitchen. Together, they use less than my television.