Struggling to achieve Power Move target!

Genuinely struggling with this. The first day I had my girl child to get back to work so needed to feed her first so oven goes on. 

The second day we did well, then last night, I didn't even cook, had all bar one light off (using candles!) And my electricity was sky high. Not sure how or what, didn't have dishwasher or washer on. It's so disheartening when I feel like im really trying and failing at the first hurdle.

As the time between 4pm and 7pm is 12.5% of the day we can in effect only use the average amount of power we consume over the  whole 24hours.  As 4-7 is now in darkness that makes it rather difficult to achieve the target if you are an all electric household, (our heating is oil but there is no gas here in the countryside).  No use of any appliance, no cup of tea, no use of any part of the cooker, dishwasher,washing machine etc is possible.  In fact being out of the house and having left a single low energy bulb on takes 9.4%.  If fact just a total of 370watts is all that is required to tip us over the threshold.   So if there is any evening during the week when one needs to eat before going out then we will not make the 12.5% for the month!

I really don’t believe this power move is achievable.

Just been informed I’m not on target and using 18.55% when it needs to be 12.5%
I don’t own a dishwasher my laundry has always been done late at night sometimes even through the night it is never on at peak .

practically nothing running in the house other than lighting and having a cuppa can I just add lights are all energy saving bulbs 💡 

I’m so disheartened by this just feel what is the point when I know other than sitting in the dark and not having a brew nothing more can be done to achieve the target.

Feel the same as some, nigh on impossible because life has to go on. I'm occasionally in work (wfh) still between 4-6pm, so light, printer and computer with 3 screens on, impossible to save there.

TV generally on following this, do most chores etc during day or weekends anyway, so feeling, after today's email, that is an impossible target.

I'd be very interested to know at the end of this just how many people got/get the rewards! 

I too have received the half way email telling me I am not on target. I’m at 15.79%.

It has felt like we, as a family of 3, have been doing this for a month already! None of the major appliances are used between 4pm and 7pm. Hubby is coming home to a dark, cold, silent house when there are already two of us at home . I wouldn’t blame him if he went to the pub instead… well, I might.

We feel as though we are just practising for a blackout!

Hopefully the new freezer we had to buy at the weekend will make a dent in that % by the end of the month. The old one was over 20 years old after all.

Good luck everyone and if anyone has a “lightbulb moment” and does come up with some extra tips, please let us know.

Literally just had the same conversation about turning the breaker off 😃

Feels like that is the only way I will get mine down I have to have a bit chuckle as our heating has not been on once we have a log burner and even that hasn’t been fired up yet .

On my app it’s telling me I’m using 17% less electric weekly than a similar home and 41% less gas.

Mission impossible 🤣

No way am I turning my boiler and cooker off may as well cut the breaker.

All appliances are off at the wall we literally have a light on whatever room we are in which are all LED bulbs and make a cuppa.

Cooking is done after 7 anyway we use a air fryer and we have a gas hob.

No showers washing or any other none essential electricity is used.

I for one will not be continuing with this unrealistic scheme for twenty quid.

I know I have already reduced my bills just by being more conscious of unplugging appliances not in use so I will just plod on as I am doing.

I’m on target. But I have the lights on,  TV on, use the microwave and have the odd brew.  Oh and our heated blankets as we don’t have the heating on. 
if I wasn’t on target I wouldn’t be doing anything else to get £20. I’ve cut back enough and couldn’t do anymore and I wouldn’t be willing to sit in the quiet and dark, for such a small reward. 

But I would be really interested in how it’s worked out. I don’t like that I just didn’t know till I got the email. 

My problem is that our overnight electricity use is much lower than day/evening and this means that the peak use will always trend above the target.

The only way to pull down the 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. use as a percentage of the total day is to run high power appliances outside the 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. window.  However, as there are just two people in our house, we don’t need to run the washing machine or dishwasher often enough to achieve this. I know this because we have already moved use of the electric oven and kettle outside these hours and we are not hitting the target.

There is actually a perverse incentive to unnecessarily run high powered appliances off peak in the week to hit the target, if you would otherwise just miss it as the £20.00 could outweigh the additional cost!

I think any of this type of system is flawed in some way. The current one seems best suited for people who are heavy users who, if they cut back slightly, can easily make their 4-7pm percentage use look low. Meanwhile light users struggle because there's very little left they can move.

A system that looks at historical peak use and rewards you to reduce it is similarly weighted against light users, or even working households that don't fit the "9 to 5" model. In our house for example, we're both generally out between 4 and 7pm so our use during those times is essentially phantom load only. To reduce that by much we'd have to turn off the fridge and freezer. We average about 150w/hr of use during the key window. No way we could get that down without turning off things that shouldn't be turned off.

For the record we got the reward for November, just, coming in at 10.12%. But I think that was helped by the use of an electric fan heater for an hour a day outside those peak times which reduced the overall percentage of the 4-7pm usage. We average about 5.5-6kWh/day which isn't high usage, but there's no reward for just being a light user in general, and being a light user it's proportionally harder to meet reduction targets because you have little you can reduce.