Power Move February 2024- Struggling to hit the target

Actually, you’ve hoodwinked yourself. The clue is in the name OVO Power Move, NOT OVO Power Reduce.

By going on holiday, you caused your usage to flatline for that entire period meaning you didn’t realistically shift anything outside of peak hours. In fact, you didn’t really move any power usage at all - you just shut it all down making most of your property use 0kWh for the entire period. As such, you do not qualify for a reward - you have to shift usage to Off-Peak, not shut down all day! A fridge and a freezer running 24/7 is not enough to hit any targets ever - and this is an intentional part of the scheme design.

For your information, if you’d been on holiday for the entire month… You’d still have lost anyway because you’d have made your usage even more flatlined. There’s a built-in anti-cheat and while you wouldn’t trigger it by doing that, it’s unfair to let people win just because they haven’t been doing anything all month while others like myself actually put the effort into actually shifting usage.

There is no right of appeal in these cases. If you don’t play the game, you automatically lose the prize. It’s as simple as that. If you make a complaint, it’s almost certain to be rejected for the same reason. You’ve already admitted that you were away on holiday for pretty much the entire month and the data from your meter would back that up so you’ve got no option but to accept you lost the game and move on.

If you actually want to win the reward going forward, you’ll need to try something other than shutting down the house all month. We have tips and advice available on the Forum - check out some of the other threads we have here as they may help you.

I think Blastoise186 has answered this question well. The OVO Power Move is just that. While it is about reducing energy use overall, its about moving it from peak to off-peak usage. I suspect we will all find what CB1539 has when we go on holiday. Yes, energy will be reduced during that time but there will be no shift and hence we will lose our monthly reward.

I’m with you…

I do understand the power-shift point. But there seems to be a dark art around the numbers. 
 

We do all we can reasonably do to shift our useage. All the tips plus more. I even boil the kettle outside the time and keep the hot water in a thermos of a cuppa I the stone age hours. 
 

In Feb we apparently totally missed all targets at 16.69%. 
 

I see all the messages about scripts to help monitor your numbers. Maybe there is something in there for OVO to show their workings transparently, rather than have the customers try to work it out. 

Had an email just now they said l didn’t hit last months target. but sometimes if you are working and you come in you want a cuppa why should you have to go without. and l do try using different  appliances all kinds of time if l can. how do they know when you use them.

I have given up trying as I previously said having solar panels prevents me using less when it’s dark.

I note all comments.

I can only reply that I have never hit my monthly target despite using suggested appliances i.e. washing machines, TV, oven outside of 4-7pm. I have sometimes earned 50p occasionally.

Admittedly we are not what I would call heavy electricity users (average £2.50 daily) so just hoping prices will fall dramatically soon for everyones sake !

On average, I use roughly £1 a day of electricity - and I still manage to smash both Power Move Plus and I managed to hit Level 1 of Power Move in February, which is the first time I’ve succeeded at Power Move.

All this despite having a whole ton of Ubiquiti UniFi, powerful gaming laptop and a bunch of other stuff running 24/7. It IS possible to do, you just have to be clever about your usage.

Power Move is a great idea but it does make it much harder to achieve the rewards if you're a low user / not at home for a chunk of the month. We use a reasonably low amount of electricity as a general rule, normally around 5-7ish kWh a day. Which, for our house, is almost phantom load. Actual usage over and above phantom load is around 3-5kWh. That makes it very hard to hit the Power Move target for us. Normally we come in around 0.5 to 1.5% or so under the limit.

Lately we've been using the dryer a lot which has increased our monthly usage quite a bit, but consequently - since it's used outside the 4-7pm window - has meant we easily hit this month's target, coming in at 8.72%. It's possible the reward might just pay for the dryer use.

@Blastoise186  and others are right. It's not about using less overall it's about moving as much of what you do use outside peak hours. If you use very little in general, especially if some days are completely flat phantom load only, then the task is so much harder.

I don't know if there's a happy medium that's suitable for all. Even the other schemes around really only benefit high users. Like trying to reduce your usage in a certain window by 3kWh. We barely use that all day sometimes so we'd never be able to reduce by that amount in a one hour window.

Easiest trick to have a chance of hitting the target is to do all your washing and drying during the week not at weekends. Still using the same electric over the week but moving the weekend use to during the week off-peak raises your overall weekday use, and reduces the peak window percentage.

Most of the winter months solar panels are just a black lump on the roof. Dec and Jan and perhaps Nov to Feb you could have entered.

Or you could add batteries and use your own electricity rather than import in the summer evenings. 

You can use smart plugs. And program them to turn off the power during 1600-1900. Then consumption during gonna be 0. There would be spike after 1900 and more time to cool down to range. Totai 24 consumption would be almost the same.

That the goal of power move 

Hi Blastoise

How on earth do you use only £1 a day of electricity? I have attached my Feb 24 usage - the peaks are where the electric cars have been charged, as the Ovo plot doesn’t include the discount for car charging as this is applied retrospectively. We have 1.5kW electric underfloor heating in the bathroom, but the rest of house is heated by gas - at much higher cost! So the consumption is mainly just normal stuff that everyone has in their house. I do have a lot of computers, though!

Tony

Easy. Despite having an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 with a 180W charger which is about 3x more powerful than most laptop chargers (seriously!) hooked up to two additional 24-inch displays and a whack ton of Ubiquiti UniFi powered by a UniFi Dream Machine (and a whole bunch of other tech tricks), all my stuff is very power efficient. So much so, I have enough Wi-Fi to power an entire office all day for less than it costs to boil a kettle for a couple of minutes.

That and erm… Hax… My underfloor heating and hot water don’t run on my own meter, but instead on a separate landlord meter that powers a communal heating/hot water system, so I just pay a fixed fee of something like 50p a week for unlimited heating and hot water. Since none of that hits my electric meter, it never hits my bill. I can literally turn my den into a sauna and rack up a huge electric bill for my landlord, but a certain stack of dead trees means they can’t make me pay for it. :)

The other trick for me is that I’m also a community volunteer with the fire service. I get assigned to a LOT of events meaning I effectively spend more time out of my den than I do in it. :)

I should have realised that how they know by my email wasn’t thinking. having a moment. 
any way sometimes l find the hour ones easier to do so not inclined to use appliances then. l achieved it once in one of the months. don’t know how but l did.

I have solar panels…but I have consistently managed to achieve the full power move objective every month since last summer (ish) when I first knew about & signed up to it.

It’s just a matter of juggling things about to fit in the time scales OVO wants you to use, & by thinking outside the box we’ve managed it. Sometimes I kick myself when I realise I’ve put the toaster or microwave on in peak times but hey ho my grandson arriving unexpectedly for tea just has to eat! I just double down on other days to make up for it. It’s harder to achieve it when the sun is shining & the battery is charged, but it’s doable with a bit of thought.

Just plan ahead, & double down on other days if your plans go a little awry.

Personally I find that for me it's all down to cooking.

I have found that just doing my cooking (electric cooking) outside of the 4-7 peak slot  is enough for me to hit the PM lower target each month.

Boiling the ocassional kettle, or occasionally using the microwave or air fryer, during peak takes the percentage used up but not too much.

There are even days when I don't try at all, eg. last Friday I used the electric cooker at peak time (a large pie that wouldn't  fit in my air fryer) and clocked up 21% usage between 4-7, but my much lower peak usage in the rest of the week brought that down to 11% overall for that week.

I find that I don't need to mess about with anything else, but if I'm really trying then I can get down to 5% or even 4% for the day without too much hardship, - and definitely no sitting in the cold and dark for me.

(I copy/paste the half hour usage figures from my online account into my own spreadsheet to keep an eye on how things are going each day and so each month).

I’ve posted this elsewhere but here’s a little thing that can help you do the calculations for how much energy you’ve used in the 4 to 7 timeslot each day.  Create a bookmark and then edit it and change the link to this:

javascript:(()=>{let e=document.querySelectorAll("[data-testid='usage-table-data']"),t=0;for(let a=32;a<=37;a++)t+=parseFloat(e[a].innerText);alert(t.toFixed(2) + " = " + (t*100 / document.querySelector('[data-testid="single-fuel-usage"]').innerText).toFixed(2)+"%")})();

When you go into your daily usage page click the link and it’ll popup a message showing the total usage in the 4 to 7 slot and the percentage used in that slot.  Make sure you’re showing electricity only.

If you want to work it out for the month you’re still going to have to put the total daily and slot amount into a spreadsheet.  If I’ve got time I’ll work on a script to do the whole month.

In February my mid month email told me I was outside the target to get anything.  I did loads of washloads outside the peak slot and cooking and brought it down to 10.54%.

It really is about knowing it’s the average of the energy used in the 4 to 7 slot on weekdays.  I did wonder first if it was the average of the percentages, which luckily it’s not.

What do you eat if you’re only £1 per day, just one of my Dimplex Quantum storage heaters on economy 10 is costing me £25 per week, then I do like to have proper cooked meals. I don’t have a computer just an iPad, laptop and mobile. I use quick wash cycle programmed to come on in the morning twice a week. I refuse to use the other three storage heaters so they’re never switched on and I use two more controllable panel heaters when needed. The daily standing charge is a disgrace and should be scrapped, then of course we’re now all paying extra for those in fuel debt. Fortunately my house is very well insulated and takes advantage of the sun even in winter. However when I retire in September I’m off for three months to warmer climes and if Spain changes the 90 rule for us, even better. Sun sea and sangria for me.

Usually around 8pm these days, and yes I still have cooked meals. I just have a very power efficient setup in my flat despite all my stuff being massively overpowered.

Also, I spend a LOT of time out and about, which further cuts my bills. Given that the fire service reimburses my travel expenses for all assignments, and also reimburses my sustenance expenses for assignments lasting four hours or more… I have ways to manage my bills...

So, Blastoise you are not in the same boat as the rest of us then, you make savings because some of your usage is on your landlords meter and you’re out most of the day. When you live like the rest of us and get billed for All your usage then I could believe your comments on how to save.

Don’t be so quick to judge. £1 a day has always been my average even before I joined the fire service. As it so happens, I use about the same regardless of whether I’m in all day or out all day.

Also, communal heating systems are more common than you think. I am in the same boat as MANY folk who are in supported living and/or independent living schemes - and there’s tens of thousands of people in the UK who are in one.

All it basically does is allow me to run other stuff for the same price as what the heating would cost, so I actually don’t save much in that regard because that other stuff runs 24/7/365 - heating does not do that.

As for what I do with the fire service? It only takes but a moment to Google what a fire service community volunteer does. We operate on an assignment basis, so unlike operational crews we don’t spend our days hanging around fire stations. And unlike pretty much all other support staff roles, we’re not confined to a particular place either. We go wherever the service asks us to go - but only when we have an active assignment. We are off-duty the rest of the time and do our own thing. On top of that, our assignments are handed out on the basis of mutual agreement between the volunteer and the service. If I just want to stick to assignments within 2 miles of me, I can do that just fine and no-one will mind. I instead choose to travel all over the entire service area because I love to explore new places and do new things. That is the sole reason I can spend all day out on an assignment - because many of mine are long distance ones and/or are several hours long due to the nature of them.

Ultimately, it generally means my Power Move targets are lower than yours - they’re based on MOVING power, not REDUCING it. I just have to work harder than everyone else in order to get the prize.

You cannot win unless you play the game properly and by the rules. If memory serves Suze, you seem to fall into the category of forum users who keep moaning because you’re not playing the game properly. You need to get over it - or at very least, try harder at actually playing to win.

If you keep on your warpath that you seem to be going down, we’ll just keep explaining this important fact again and again.

If you are not interested in playing the game properly however, may I please ask that you consider stepping aside and consider possibly withdrawing from further contributions in the Power Move group. Forum Volunteers and other contributors monitor it primarily to assist those in need of help. The extra noise created by random moaning makes it harder for us to keep up.

Sometimes it is hard if you need to cook your meat say like chicken. you don’t want to be cooking after seven you be eating much later. as l worked longer today as l was needed. sometimes l achieve the hour ones which seem easier.

It clearly states ‘Use 14.5% or less of your home’s total daily electricity between 4pm and 7pm, Monday to Friday.’ I too wonder how OVO calculate their figures. I am away a lot which means during the week I am only using background electricity evenly spread out over weekday 24 hr periods which equates to 12.5% during any 3 hour period including that between 4pm and 7pm. Despite this I got an email from OVO stating that my average consumption for March’s weekday 4 to 7pm periods to date was 22.97% which doesn’t make sense.   

It’s from the Half-Hourly usage data your Smart Meter records. If your usage is just significantly background, I’m afraid you’ll struggle to hit the targets - it’s about moving power usage (electricity only!) around rather than shutting everything down.

Don’t give up though!

… only using background electricity evenly spread out over weekday 24 hr periods which equates to 12.5% during any 3 hour period

Not always, or at least not in every case.

Remember that your ‘background’ use may not always be constant throughout the day.
Even background use can be more in some hours than in others.

For example:
Most people have the central heating timer set to off overnight, so for the night time hours it never fires up and the electric pump doesn’t run.
Fridges/freezers, you don’t open them at night meaning they don’t have to run as often to cool down again.
You may have other things that are timed to be always-off overnight.
So there can be less background use during the night hours.

As a very rough example (it’s not entirely correct but illustrates the point) take out 6 hours of background use overnight and the percentage for the 3 target hours changes.
Instead of being 3 hours out of 24 (12.5%) it becomes 3 hours out of 18 and so 16.6%.
In reality of course the calculation is a bit more complicated than that because there is still other background use going on at night.

Edit to add a real life example:
During the night my own current background use in a half hour period is 0.01 kWh, when I’m not in the house during the daytime the background use is higher at 0.03 kWh. The difference is simply the 95W central heating pump running occasionally in daytime.
Neither is very high, but daytime currently has 3x the background use of nightime.
That will change as the summer comes and the heating stops firing up during the day.

The way to check your own percentages is to keep an eye on your own half-hour usage figures, they are available on your OVO account portal, and calcaulate the percentages for yourself.
That’s a lot of half-hour periods to calculate over a month and many of us copy/paste them into a spreadsheet to keep a running track of it. (Some have posted their own particular spreadsheets on the forum for others to use).

Once you do start looking more closely at your own half-hour usage figures it can give you other useful insights into how you use electricity throughout the day, useful not just for the Power Move promotion.