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Power Move - new challenge information and changes to Power Move

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 28, 2025
238 replies
7839 views

Updated on 14/07/26 by Abby_OVO

Hi everyone,

In 2024, OVO customers saved over £1.6 million by shifting their energy and making greener choices with Power Move.

Ahead of the challenge starting 1 February 2025, we introduced a few changes.

Power Move prize draw

Whilst Power Move will always be about helping you save money on your energy bills and reducing demand on the energy grid, the way it works has changed.

Each month, if you use 15% or less of your total electricity during peak times you’ll now earn entries into a monthly prize draw. The number of entries depends on how much electricity you use during peak times. The lower your home’s peak time energy use, the more entries you’ll earn.

How we calculate your number of entries

If you have a peak time electricity usage of 15% or less at the end of the month, you’ll earn entries for the prize draw.

The amount of entries earned will correspond with your end-of-month peak time electricity use percentage as follows:

0 to 1% = 15 entries
1.01 to 2% = 14 entries
2.01 to 3% = 13 entries
3.01 to 4% = 12 entries
4.01 to 5% = 11 entries
5.01 to 6% = 10 entries
6.01 to 7% = 9 entries
7.01 to 8% = 8 entries
8.01 to 9% = 7 entries
9.01 to 10% = 6 entries
10.01 to 11% = 5 entries
11.01 to 12% = 4 entries
12.01 to 13% = 3 entries
13.01 to 14% = 2 entries
14.01% to 15% = 1 entry
15.01% or above = 0 entries

After each month ends, the number of entries you’ve earned will be automatically entered into a prize draw, along with all the entries of other customers who’ve earned entries in that month.

The prizes

A minimum of 5 customers each month will win up to a year’s worth of free energy*, with a range of other bill credit prizes also available to win. There’ll be a minimum of 10,000 prizes available every month.

You can see what prizes are being offered in the Power Move section of your OVO app and on ovoenergy.com/power-move at the beginning of each new month.

If you’re a winner you’ll be notified in the Power Move section of the app. Customers can win one prize per month.

Changes to peak times

We've heard your feedback that it can feel difficult to shift your home’s energy use during the current window of 4-7pm. From 1 February 2025, peak times changed to 5pm-7pm, Monday - Friday.

Weekend usage is still counted as off-peak.

Updates via the OVO app

You'll be able to see your progress through the app. When the new challenge is live, sign in to your account and select 'Power Move' on the home screen.

Here, you’ll have a progress dashboard to track how you’re getting on, and see if you’ve won a prize at the end of the month.

For more information, visit ovoenergy.com/power-move, our Power Move FAQs and Power Move terms and conditions.

*A year’s free energy is set at a maximum bill credit of £2,000. A year’s free energy is calculated in line with Ofgem’s average Energy Price Cap for January-March 2025 for customers paying by Direct Debit, which is worked out based on a 2-3 bedroom house, with 2 to 3 occupants using the average domestic usage in electricity per year. Credit may not equal one year’s free energy if you are a higher than average user or if the price cap were to increase beyond current forecasts. We’ll pay it as energy bill credit in 12 monthly instalments. For example, if you win a year's free energy in January, the credit would be applied to your bill in February and each following month up to the last payment in January the following year.

Show previous replies

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costeek

Rank 2

I’ve also just given up on recycling because they’ve given us yet another recycling box and we have to do even more separation. Sorry, no. Six different bins is just too much.

Sorry, it’s completely unrelated to the topic, but is it really six bins? I hear about it all the time, but, in my case, it’s only two for recycling (one for paper/cardboard and another for glass/plastic/tins) and one for general. Just curious.

G

GrenTM

Newcomer

10hrs out of 168 in a week is 6% of the time so perhaps the 2% is achievable if high usage activities are avoided, in that case it’s pretty good, £10 plus 14 entries?

It’s a bit strange way to look at it. Power Move is about using less energy during a certain time slot in the day. 10 hours out of 168 in a week—how does this apply to PM? I’m genuinely confused.
Avoiding the high usage activities to reach 2%, might work if you are a family that consumes a lot of energy. Though, I don’t know how you would describe it to your little child. But if you are single, living alone, and are already a low-energy user, that’s nearly impossible. The only “high usage activity” in my case is the fridge, which I’m not planning to switch off every day for two hours… Buying a new fridge would cost me more than I potentially could save.

NO its not about using LESS energy in a time slot its about MOVING that energy usage to another time slot not at peak time.

Exactly, run the washing machine / dryer / ironing / oven etc at times outside of 5-7pm hence shifting the usage between those hours down on average. If you boiled the kettle every day from 701pm to 1659pm you’d definitely hit it!

C

costeek

Rank 2

10hrs out of 168 in a week is 6% of the time so perhaps the 2% is achievable if high usage activities are avoided, in that case it’s pretty good, £10 plus 14 entries?

It’s a bit strange way to look at it. Power Move is about using less energy during a certain time slot in the day. 10 hours out of 168 in a week—how does this apply to PM? I’m genuinely confused.
Avoiding the high usage activities to reach 2%, might work if you are a family that consumes a lot of energy. Though, I don’t know how you would describe it to your little child. But if you are single, living alone, and are already a low-energy user, that’s nearly impossible. The only “high usage activity” in my case is the fridge, which I’m not planning to switch off every day for two hours… Buying a new fridge would cost me more than I potentially could save.

NO its not about using LESS energy in a time slot its about MOVING that energy usage to another time slot not at peak time.

That’s what I mean, to use less during certain time slot, so you use more during other time. I think we both mean the same.

A

ajr

Rank 4

And given the numbers who are now saying that they won’t bother with PM anymore then maybe there will be a better than negligible chance?

I calculated the statistics and on average my monthly reward for being in PowerMove, with 12 entries per month, will be between 2p and 9p per month. Its fairly easy to do the calculations to show that.

Clearly I’m not going to take any action to avoid peak-time usage if my expected reward is now 2-9p per month, instead of £10-12.

I'll probably still sign up, because there is no penalty for signing up and NOT getting any entries, and if I happen to get entries and win £125 or £2000, fine. But since the odds of me winning the £2000 are about once every 7000 years, and my odds of winning £125 are about once every 280 years, I won’t be counting on it. £2 isn’t really worth winning anyway, and that will be about once every 2 years.

I will go back to enjoying having all my lights, heating, oven, fridge and washing machine on between 5 and 7pm on a weekday.

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costeek

Rank 2

Exactly, run the washing machine / dryer / ironing / oven etc at times outside of 5-7pm hence shifting the usage between those hours down on average. If you boiled the kettle every day from 701pm to 1659pm you’d definitely hit it!

I’ve been participating in PM for over a year since it started. From my own experience, it’s not that easy. As a low-energy consumer, my lowest was 6%. Perhaps, I could get down to 5% if I’m very strict. Please, I would like to know, in a month's time could you comment here – have you managed to reach the 2% target?

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john23

Newcomer

hang on is this in addition too the bill discount or instead of!? If instead off lots of people won’t bother!

I agree, I have taken part since the inception of “power move” started. I will not be so inclined at the chance of winning. I have the national lottery to fill that.

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Charlotte42

Newcomer

Hi All,

I am a single person and a conscientious low energy user. I have been in power move since April 2024. The only things I ever have switched on during peak hours are the fridge/Freezer, my broadband router, smartmetre display, oven clock, combi boiler + 1 LED light on in the room I am in. Everything else is switched off.

During the summer months when I didn’t even need a light on, the best I ever managed was 4.95% and that included switching off the fridge freezer for 3 hours (AND NOT OPENING THE DOORS!).

So this 2% target to earn £10 is impossible.

I agree with most of the previous comments. I use to brag to my friends on how I got £12 credit every month and suggested they join Ovo. But now there is no longer any point being part of OVO or power move unless you are a large family with heavy electric useage to move.

I will still not use my heavy appliances during peak hours, in order to reduce the need to run the national grid’s gas generators for better enviromental impact but I will now be shopping around for the best rate to move supplier once my fixed tarriff is up. Other providers offer ½ price on weekends, so that at least is better than what OVO are offering.

Sad move OVO.

C

costeek

Rank 2

10hrs out of 168 in a week is 6% of the time so perhaps the 2% is achievable if high usage activities are avoided, in that case it’s pretty good, £10 plus 14 entries?

It’s a bit strange way to look at it. Power Move is about using less energy during a certain time slot in the day. 10 hours out of 168 in a week—how does this apply to PM? I’m genuinely confused.
Avoiding the high usage activities to reach 2%, might work if you are a family that consumes a lot of energy. Though, I don’t know how you would describe it to your little child. But if you are single, living alone, and are already a low-energy user, that’s nearly impossible. The only “high usage activity” in my case is the fridge, which I’m not planning to switch off every day for two hours… Buying a new fridge would cost me more than I potentially could save.

NO its not about using LESS energy in a time slot its about MOVING that energy usage to another time slot not at peak time.

That’s what I mean, to use less during certain time slot, so you use more during other time. I think we both mean the same.

Oops, I see, my point about the fridge will not work that way. My bad!

Blastoise186

Super User

Good evening,

Please be advised that ALL of my comments in this thread are my own personal thoughts unless I state otherwise. These comments were not seen by anyone at OVO prior to me posting them.

hang on is this in addition too the bill discount or instead of!? If instead off lots of people won’t bother!

The prize draw system replaces the previous bill discount system - the old one will be fully turned off once it has run for long enough to fully satisfy the powers that be that OVO did what it was supposed to do for one full year.

@fancyabrew My interpretation of the email is that it’s instead of, but I may be wrong.

There may be more rewards in store than just the ones advertised. I don’t want to give away spoilers, but something good may happen if you trigger certain conditions...

I really dislike this change. I liked saving energy at peak time for a guaranteed return. I do not like games of chance such as prize draws. Please go back to the old way as soon as you can. I think this will r dice my motivation for moving power. And will definitely stop me from further investing in technology, such as battery storage, to increase my power move capabilities.

Sorry

These changes are - in my view - intended to make Power Move more sustainable and scalable. Given that Power Move “V1” essentially allowed every OVO customer who took part to put a straw into OVO’s wallet and slurp out as much cash as they wanted, it was inevitably going to have to change at some point. Power Move “V2” basically puts a speed limiter on how much slurping you can do with your straw while making it more fair on everyone else because there’s more free juice to go around. But if you get lucky, PM V2 also lets you really gulp down on the free juice under the right conditions…

You’ll need to play the game to find out what some of those conditions are...

Not a good change. Looking at the scale, I'd probably get 3-5 entries. Probably just not going to bother even trying to reduce usage if there's no benefit like money off the bill, and the number of entries will be so low anyway.

I believe OVO get money from somewhere to fund these schemes and they're supposed to benefit as many users as possible? This way the big winners are going to be people who already have things like solar and use very little grid energy and get a lot more entries into the draws than everyone else.

Horrible change, not going to bother I think.

I still feel it’s better than the other alternative…

As I’ve said before, it’s better to have a voluntary scheme than a mandatory one…

Also remember that this is OVO Power MOVE, not OVO Power Shutdown. Simply nuking all your power during Peak hours and not shifting the same usage to other times will not earn any rewards. For the avoidance of any doubt, going on holiday for 2+ weeks and flatlining all your usage to almost nothing for that entire time also won’t get you rewards - you need to be actively moving usage to get the prizes...

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way! Remember, I'm just like you - AI Powered Evil Geniuses aren't Staff!

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Anonymous

I was wondering, does reducing peak period to 2 hours from 3 make it harder to reach the percentage?

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