What's the biggest impact changes I can make to my usage to help me hit my Power Move target?

I’ve decided cake is the answer …. last month I did 2 big lots of baking and was well beneath the 12.5% target, and in November I baked the Christmas cake (all on weekdays outside 4-7pm). This month I have done no baking … and am just scraping by at 11.5%. So cake it has to be🍰 🤣

I think that you have picked up on a valid point here.

There are two things happening for many people - firstly, trying to reduce overall consumption (to reduce cost) and secondly, to minimise consumption during the peak period (to get the £20 monthly bonus).

Crucially, the key to the second is to understand the rules - firstly, weekends and bank holidays don’t count. Secondly, the peak period is 4 - 7 pm Monday to Friday. It’s a matter of rebalancing when you consume electricity.

So here are a few tips - since the weekend doesn’t count, don’t see that as meaning that you should do all your energy consuming activities at the weekend. Move as much of this activity that you can to the non-peak Monday to Friday. You’re going to use the electricity anyway, so use it when it is most beneficial to meet the target. This means, don’t run the dishwasher or washing machine at the weekend, unless you really have to. If you use an electric shower, use it during the week (off-peak times). The objective is to reduce your energy usage between 4 and 7 as a proportion of the whole day, so the more you can consume at non-peak times, the better.

Now, I’m not advocating wasting electricity (that could cost more than the bonus is worth!), just using it at a time that achieves what you want - meeting the target.

And this can be done on relatively low daily consumption. My average daily consumption in Dec was 8.97kW, and 6.60kW in Jan (my son went away for three weeks!) yet my average peak time consumption was 0.91kW and 0.67kW respectively. During the peak period we have on the TV, lights in one room, modem and TV box, fridge and freezer. We reheat in the microwave and cook a lot on the hob.

Ultimately, if your consumption is low, the target can still be achieved.

The other key to getting this is to understand your consumption. Look at your daily usage. I created a spreadsheet to analyse the data, so I know exactly where I am during each month and can adjust accordingly. I can even see if I’m doing really well and can celebrate with the oven on at peak times during the week!

I think it's good that you're examining this more. Like most of the above, I gave up as.  then only real way to change the balance was to increase over all usage outside the times you want us to reduce use. A month sitting in the dark wearing two blankets etc did not help.

The obvious ways to achieve this would be: 

-Turning of fridges/freezers during the peak hours

- supplying households with timer switches for tvs etc to ensure they are not left on standby (as the plugs are inaccessible),

-supplying batteries to charge overnight during the cheap, non peak hours (similar to the ones used for storing power produced by solar panels etc),

-making it affordable to install heat exchange/solar power technology fitted. 

I understand the crisis we are facing but actually the study probably had a negative effect on my long term usage because of the depression i suffered sitting in the dark, being too cold to do anything.

Very happy to discuss this further, especially if it helps reduce wasted energy

A few thoughts about the current Power Move challenge - limit usage in the period 4-7PM to 12.5% of the daily usage on weekdays.

I only have one month’s experience, so no specific tips at this stage. However, I have been keeping detailed tabs on my usage. The graph below shows my half-hourly weekday usage so far this month (red bars). I’ve highlighted the target period and marked the target I’m supposed to hit. (The alarming red 10AM spike is my morning electric shower, so not important in this context.)

I’ve also added two curves showing the gross demand for electricity across Britain, for yesterday and the day before, to highlight the weekday/weekend difference. Beware of the scale for demand: it’s fudged a bit to make the distinction more obvious.
  
 

The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that high-peak demand is about an hour later than the Power Move target, i.e. about 5-8PM. This will change over the coming weeks as lighting and heating come into play earlier each day, and there will of course be a step change at the end of British Summer Time. It feels as if we’re just practising for when it really begins to matter, when that high-peak demand could trigger power cuts if all the factors involved conspire together.

This also made me think that, if everyone defers using power until after the high-peak period, there might be an uncomfortable national spike as every light, kettle, cooker, TV and games console in the country is switched on simultaneously. My own 7PM bar illustrates this possibility.

Then there’s the question of carbon intensity - how much CO₂ is emitted by energy generation from time to time. This varies a great deal from day to day and from hour to hour, especially as the proportion of power from renewable sources increases. Any shortfall caused by, say, a lack of wind will normally have to be met by burning fossil fuels, pumping more CO₂ into the atmosphere. Shifting consumption to after the target period won’t have much effect on this, but moving it to earlier in the day when the sun is shining might help. Often, the time when it’s best to consume electricity from a carbon-intensity perspective will be quite different from the Power Move objective.

I can think of no compelling reason why consumption in the target period should be higher than it is in the wee small hours, although I suspect that during the recent heatwaves, fridges and freezers had to work harder to stay cool during the afternoon. 

Last , while shifting consumption from the weekend to a weekday might help a participant to meet his target and get the reward, it’s not really in the spirit of the exercise.  It won’t help to squash down that lump on the demand graph.

As a new member of this forum, reading back over the months of postings, I found I was a bit worried by the number of people feeling they had to switch off lights and their ‘fridges/freezers during the 4-7 segment of the day. This shouldn’t be necessary.  And there are loads of good posts pointing out why it shouldn’t be necessary. 

The way I think of things is this: the 4-7 slot is exactly 12.5% of your 24 hour day, thus, left to itself, your home’s “automatic” vampire and continuous stuff like ‘fridges and freezers during the 4-7 segment shouldn’t consume much more (and possibly a bit less randomly on some days) than the 12.5% target. This doesn’t depend really on how frugal or how relaxed you are with this “automatic” consumption like routers etc., as the 4-7 segment will never be more mathematically than 12.5% of the day.

It’s only when “human agency” consumption happens that the automatic vampire steady daily pattern is disturbed: and a lot of the human agency stuff is small beer: small stuff like extra lighting (only a tiny percentage, if you are reasonably efficient and careful with lighting), opening and closing fridge doors, switching on an LED telly, powering up a (mains connected) laptop, running the gas CH to stay warm or running the hot (gas powered) tap for the sink. Even if those inputs do happen in the 4-7 segment, they won’t have a huge impact: yes they’ll put you above the 12.5% target, but not by much. But we have to stay warm and comfortable and, as the dark evenings come again, have comforting and safe levels of lighting on stairs, and in the bathroom and living room etc. The thing about these low levels of consumption is to be as efficient and non-wasteful as is comfortably possible.

But any such increase during the critical 4-7 segment in what I’ve termed all this low-level consumption (and yes, it does mount up, of course it does) can very easily be offset and made relatively insignificant by using the “big hitters” like kettles, washing machine, iron, electric cookers/microwaves/air fryers consistently outside the 4-7 segment, and preferably moving some weekend activities to weekdays outside the 4-7 segment.  And of course normal low-level extra “human agency” activity outside the 4-7:segment will only help towards the target, percentage-wise.

A single weekday hour outside the 4-7 segment of using, say, a 2.5kWh oven might consume, say, 1.5kWh of electricity. More than enough to offset the three hours 4-7 of low-level activity amounting to less than 0.5kWh (for example, a CH pump averaging maybe 0.1 kWh, LED lighting averaging maybe 0.05 kWh, a telly and ancillary eqpt. averaging perhaps 0.2 kWh, any slightly extra ‘fridge/freezer activity). My own washing machine uses about 0.6kWh per cool wash, so a couple of those per week during the weekday segments outside the 4-7 segments will also go a long way, as will the usual daily 20-30 minutes of kettle-boiling (a huge 1.5kWh daily).

So please, folks, don’t go dark and cold during the 4-7 weekday segment, it actually will not necessarily contribute to achieving your target, as after all your effort and hardship you’d really be doing little more than matching the other 21 hours in the day when you’re either out of the house or asleep or whatever. Rather the trick is to shift as much as possible of our heavy hitter usage both from the 4-7 segment and, wherever may be possible, from the weekend as well, into any weekday segment that is not between 4PM and 7PM.  It doesn’t have to be all our heavy usage by any means (provided we avoid heavy stuff in 4-7 segment) maybe three or four things per week (on weekdays) might be enough.

We don’t have to increase overall consumption of electricity, that would be counter productive! Just *shift* usage from the silent non-contributory weekends or from the crucial 4-7 segments into weekday non-4-7 segments!

Sorry if I’ve been windy, but I’ve been a bit distressed by seeing how some folk have been discouraged or even have been causing themselves discomfort or distress. Don’t go switching off your ‘fridges and freezers (they’ll only need to work extra hard when you re-power them anyway) and for goodness’ sake don’t go cold or dark during 4-7, especially as winter comes back again.

The good news is that the winter Power Move (for Oct-Dec)  is slightly more generous, at an increased level of 13.5% for the same 4-7 segment.

Good luck to all of us, and together we’ll keep trying!

I did a test to see what my 'on all the time' appliances were drawing, which may be of interest to others.

I switched everything off and then put each one on one at once to see what the IHD said they were drawing.
The IHD itself was unplugged and running on batteries. But I did test it plugged in and it shows itself as using 1 Watt.

Always on:
  4 W - Smoke/CO2 Alarms. Mains powered and obviously can't be turned off.
Note that that 4W has been taken into account and deducted from the readings to give the following figures.

11 W  - BT Smarthub2 + attached SSD drive.

Automatic on/off.
 85 W - Combi Boiler running fired. 70 W pump only not fired. 3 W on standby.
 90 W - Fridge Freezer when the compressor is running.

On for most of the day (12 to 16 hours):
 32 W - Laptop, in use (streaming a Youtube video), plugged in and on mains power, battery fully charged.
      I have 2 laptops, both 8+ years old and both draw about the same 32 W.

I have 8.5 W LED lightbulbs throughout.

I don't have a TV in use, if I want to watch things I’ll use the laptop.

I didn't test the big high wattage hitters hitters, things that you have more control over when you use them like the kettle, electric cooker, air fryer, microwave, washing machine, or vacuum cleaner.
You should know what those use, or check your own using your IHD.

As I only managed to enrol in the Autumn Challenge yesterday (after a struggle, see other thread) I haven’t been trying or actively monitoring it as of yet.

Thanks for sharing this @Nukecad 

That’s a very interesting read and I look forward to hearing how you get on through out the challenge, along with any amendments you make along the way. 

I know you’re definitely not alone in being a lower electricity user, so I’m sure this will also help some others with ideas of how they can still meet the target too!

Hi I thought I’d let everyone know I succeeded in the power move easily all I had to do was turn are plasma tv off between 4 and 7 if know one was watching it which is most of the time between these hours as there always on there phone’s and iPads mostly during these hours I ended up getting it down to 10% of my usage and I never put the car on charge between these hours now I’ve just realised I need to get rid of that plasma tv as soon as these 3 months  are over

It’s easy for some and not for others

I have solar panels so a lot of what I use during daylight hours is what I generate. All OVO see is that I’m not using much until sun goes down at about the time the power move kicks in. It is near on impossible for someone with solar panel and no battery storage to meet the target even though they are probably using less during the power move window, just not importing less. 
 

Fortunately I still managed to hit my target because I have an electric car that charges outside of the power move window and makes the other energy used look very small. 
 

We try and use when the sun is out so we are using solar energy ,and don't use between 4pm and 7pm.

I'm lucky as I live in a retirement complex and we have a laundry room so I just stick to my times for using it.  Also I only turn items in when I absolutely need them.  I batch cook during the day and then reheat my dinner but try to eat after 7pm.  If I eat earlier I use my Ninjas or microwave for cooking, I don't have an oven and I very rarely use my electric hob. The trick is to turn everything off if your not using it. Don't forget you can set budget targets in your smart meter.

Paradoxically, solar power without a battery makes it more difficult to hit the target. If you use solar power off-peak it makes the in-peak use percentage higher. The only way that solar power can help you meet the target is to use the off peak solar to charge a battery and then use the battery during the peak hours. However, solar plus battery is an expensive item and if you don’t already have it (I don’t have either) it won’t pay to get a system just to get the discount for reducing peak usage. It also doesn’t guarantee you will meet the peak discount criteria either. You’re not missing out.