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.

So, got my "are you on track" email today, and I'm currently (as of when they crunched the numbers whenever that was) coming in at 12.88% which frankly is just weird. At the halfway point last month I was at 10.11%.

Both my wife and I are still out of the house most days between 4 and 7, and our usage outside that timeframe has actually increased due to needing to use a couple of fan heaters and the gas central heating more (GCH uses an electric pump after all) because it's been a wee bit cold the last couple weeks.

If anything, that increased usage outside the 4-7pm window should actually make the important percentage lower. Strangely that doesn't seem to be the case. I think the magic monkey and his Casio calculator is using some hitherto unknown method for working these things out. Or maybe he forgot to carry a 2 or something. 

We haven’t done anything different and have had an email to say we are on 9.67%….no idea how they are measuring it!

I’m on track and the email figure (recd today ) virtually agrees to my own manual figures - looks like it was measured on 15th December.

I'm off target too, and have really tried to cut back.

Same here. Last month we hit 10.5% and now we are informed that we are 12.85.

Isn't that a coincidence almost the same as your figures. I do hope someone isn't applying a 'correction factor'.

Those doubting figures- you can easily double check usage on your OVO App - counted dates so far are 1,2, 5,6,7,8,9,  12,13,14,15  Dec simply get your total KW/h for each day ( the figure is shown on your App) add them together we’ll call this X . Check your usage each of these days in the 16-00-19-00 time slots (add together the 3 slots) for your Daily figure. Add these together for all the dates above we’ll call this Y  =  Y / X gives you your % used 16.00-19.00 this should agree or be close to the OVO figure in your email. 

We've gone up to 18.sth%,  more central heating and space heater for short bursts wfh,  also we couldn't use our washing machine as it froze in our outhouse which is always used a m. or post 7pm.

I work from home - I’m in most days. I’ve been extra careful to make sure there are no extra lights or appliances running to generally reduce usage and keep costs down given the current price of power - but this does make it harder to stay on track between 4 and 7 at this time of year - I do understand that in effect that’s the point - we are all switching on lights and cooking dinner etc between those times - but in a rural location, without mains gas, or street lights - even the oil boiler relies on electricity to run the pump and power the controller. Ironically I’ve found that by being less careful all day it’s easier to stay on target during the peak hours - which does somewhat defeat the object. 
That said - I’m on track and monitoring daily on a spreadsheet so that I can address any over-use the following day.
I do wonder whether a multi-level charging system might be fairer though - perhaps based on the ‘average’ usage being charged at a lower rate and above average usage slightly more expensive … for example the first xxKw of the day charged (or even capped) at one rate, the next xxKw charged at a higher rate and maybe even a highest level for extreme use charged at a highest rate for usage over xxKw in a 24 hour period.
I guess an alternative is the public-transport model of charging saver, off-peak and peak rates - so one rate applies to the current ‘off-peak’ hours as per the trail (Mon-Fri 00:00 - 15:59 and 19:00 to 23:59 / Sat Sun 00:00 to 23:59) and another rate applies between 16:00 and 18:59 Mon - Fri) Perhaps with a basic ‘saver’ rate applied to the first xxKw to reward the lowest users. That way those who are able to reduce overall consumption and those who are already low-usage benefit - everyone has the opportunity to save during peak times by moving power consumption or switching off and those who consume above average pay a little extra. 
Anyway - fingers crossed I’ll remain on target and if nothing else I do have a better understanding of the ‘tick-over’ costs of running fridges, routers, freezers, etc when the house is unoccupied and also where my daily power-spikes are and what causes them. I’m not keen on the idea of having appliances running while I’m out or when I’m in bed though - so I guess its fortunate that I’m usually in during the day and able to spread out usage during the day and in the evenings to fit around Power Move.

@Coldspur Andy Oh I know that. I just can't be wasting that sort of time when I'm working 13 hours a day at the minute. I just find it strange that our usage on the 4-7pm slot can't have gone up cos there's no one in, and our usage outside 4-7pm has definitely gone up, so logically that should bring down the percentage in the 4-7 window. Unless the fridge and freezer have been kicking in a lot more during the window than last month I guess. Always possible, but I'm not turning those off under any circumstances.

We are on track now but were also on track this time last month and didn’t reach the target at the end of the month. So not hopeful really - just missed it last month by a tiny amount. Not really done anything different. Can’t see much else we can do! 

Hi,

I am on track this month - but similarly I don’t understand how - the % has dropped down to 7%

I do have an electric oven though and have done 2 large baking sessions this month, both on a weekday outside 4-7.  Sadly, I can’t (or shouldn’t) live on cake!!!!  Maybe my oven is more inefficient than I ever imagined.  Other than that, and making sure I have made my cup of tea before 4pm I’ve just carried on as normal.

Hi @PLUM44 , just wondering if you could do most of the prep beforehand and then finish to your time needs. It’s always awkward when you have a routine but it might be something to look at

Two pensioners so far to date 12.56% for last 20 days only 1led light bulb and tv on + fridge and freezer 9p and hour according to smart meter . Only way to hit target is to use more electric outside 4-7pm so will be increasing electrical use and hopeful will get my £20 to pay for it ?

I'm currently in Einstein's theory of madness - doing the same thing but expecting a different outcome! Seriously, I don't see the benefit of moving your usage to a different time of day. Surely the answer is to reduce your overall usage?

Mothergoose - I think the idea is to reduce energy use at peak times to reduce chance of power cuts although not sure that is really likely.