Is anyone else having trouble understanding what their Power Move ‘benefit’ will be in-month?

I have been adding up the daily figures available next-day through the App, but for the past 2 months the outturn email from Ovo has suggested a significantly different %-use in peak hours for the previous month (compared to the figure I get by adding the daily figures from the App up). On both occasions the discrepancy has had the effect of bumping me down a reward tier. 

Have others had a similar issue when trying to budget their electricity use late-month? And has anyone had the opposite experience where Ovo have made an error on the % that’s worked in your favour?

@PowerMover2053 During the last winter PM season I ran an independent calculation in a spreadsheet so I could track where I was in relation to the target on a day by day basis rather than just getting a mid month email telling me where I had got to. The rules then didn't include weekends or Bank Holidays so the calculation had to be right and generally I was within about 0.02% of the figure that was presented to me. I was well away from the boundaries so your situation didn't occur. I did find differences at the beginning but I found errors in my spreadsheet and corrected those. Of course, if there was a 0.02% error and you were 0.01% away from the target then that would be a difficult situation. Given that OVO is applying the same method to everyone's account I would tend to trust their calculations. Another point is that Half Hourly figures on the OVO data presented to you is rounded to units of 10Wh (0.01 kWh) whereas I think the meters send data in Wh to OVO. As far as I know the meters themselves are only accurate to about about 1%. Someone might correct me on that.

Peter

This is a useful read from @Firedog 

Hi l have decided to join the power move again. I don’t know what it involves but willing to give it ago. see what happens .

Thank you for this response. The calculations in my spreadsheet are accurate (I’ve just checked them again), leaving a discrepancy which is the equivalent of roughly two-days-worth of electricity usage in the ‘peak’ hours. The comment you posted from Firedog is illuminating and I suspect may provide the rationale for the discrepancy between OVO’s half-hourly records and their end-of-month calculation: the ‘peak hours’ may, routinely, extend for 10 minutes beyond the end of the ‘peak’ period. So if you routinely, say, switch on the washing machine, iron, kettle etc at the end of the ‘peak’ period OVO’s billing calculation may count these as being in the peak period. Let the user beware... 

@PowerMover2053 I must admit I gave the peak hours boundaries a bit of a margin just in case there was an error on those and missed the taget by a small amount. I hope that it works out better for you. We all like to succeed having put the effort in.

Last year I did say that the reward should be more graduated so that it wasn't an all or nothing situation. I doubt if it was what I had said but the scheme has evolved to be better for customers. It's good that people come on here to express an opinion or query results because these things do get put under the spotlight.

Peter

@JNeve Give it a go. See what happens. Just move whatever you reasonably can out of the peak into the non-peak hours.

You are clever in working your percentages. I can’t manage to do that I am just keeping in doing the same energy saving habits I did in the start. I have only been with this saving energy scheme a few weeks and hope it’s making a difference. I had an email saying I was on track to saving money.

Hey @PowerM0v3,

I’ve sent you a PM so that we can take a look at things for you. Keep an eye on your private messages.

The 2 decimal places from the account usage pages vs the 3 decimal places that the OVO calculation uses can make quite a difference over a month - or sometimes not much at all.

I use the 2-DP figures in my own spreadsheet  and at the month end it's been from exactly the same as OVOs up to 0.5% difference. (Up or down).

If you are on the borderline of a reward level then that 0.5% up or down can make the difference.

I’ve had a similar problem.  I monitor my usage using the Bright app and the totals are usually very close to the OVO numbers.  But in September 2024 I’d calculated my consumption during peak hours was 7.08%, but the OVO total says 7.91%.

Your calculations are undoubtedly correct, but the difference is likely to be that you’re basing them on some bits of data that weren’t available to PM at the time. Sadly, you’ve no way of knowing which days might have been discarded because PM didn’t get the half-hourly (Hh) figures until it was too late to include them. 

Bright pick up the Hh data more or less on demand, or a couple of times a day if the app is always running. OVO usually request data once a day, repeating the request later if it produced no result or an incomplete one the first time. However, there has to be a limit to the number of requests they can make and at what intervals, and PM can’t wait indefinitely just in case some data that were missing eventually turn up. So some days may get discarded. It’s a bit of a lottery, because it could work to either your benefit or your disadvantage. It looks like you missed out this time, but next month could bring a different result.

I’ve just added up the numbers using the usage data on the OVO website.  That also produces 7.1%, the same as the Bright data.  So if there were instances of data being missing then the gaps must have been filled in subsequently.  While running totals may well be a lottery, I consider PM to be a contract, and I expect OVO to honour it.

Now that PM has moved into Beyond, and now promises weekly progress updates that should help spot if/when any days data has not been included in the calculation that week.

Yes, but you’ve no way of knowing whether a specific day’s data arrived at OVO in time for them to be included in the calculation or not. 

Did you use the webpage figures with their 10Wh precision or the ones from the API precise to 1Wh? The difference can be significant. Bright and OVO should have exactly the same data, because they’re immutable once they’ve been stored in your meter.

A word of advice. Power Move isn't a contract, nor is it linked to the core supply contract. It runs purely on a best effort basis. You don't technically have the same rights over it as you do for the supply contract itself. 

Hey @peteyshep 

I’ve passed your comments along to the team. They are still looking into the matter as a whole and hopefully will have some more insight for us soon.

We’ll pop back here as soon as we have an update.

Is there any update on my question?

Hey @PowerM0v3 

I’ve spoken to the team who have advised they’re still looking into this. They should have more information later in the week.

As soon as I hear from them, I’ll update you in this topic thread. 

Just to note that today I’ve also got the half-way progress email.

So it looks like we will be getting both weekly updates in Beyond, and the half monthly email - at least for now.