If the point of ‘PowerMove’ is to shuffle power usage away from the peak 4-7pm weekday times surely it makes no sense not to count weekend usage when calculating target averages. If over the course of a whole month I’ve shuffled a significant amount of laundry, batch cooking and other power intensive chores away from weekdays and into the weekend - but Saturdays and Sundays are ignored when calculations are made - then my actual monthly off-peak average isn’t being accurately recorded for the purposes of meeting the target. In order to reach the target I need to shuffle usage in a 24 hour window, 5 days per week - rather than across the week as a whole - and concentrate usage to off-peak hours during the week … if this is about changing habits, surely whole week, or even whole month usage needs to be included when calculating averages … or am I missing something ?
Why does Power Move not include weekends?
I think the Power Move is limited to Monday to Friday 4-7pm as this is when peak demand occurs. The demands at the weekends are different. Maybe there is another window that needs to be explored at the weekends for reducing energy usage.
I understand that Mon-Fri 4-7pm is peak - and that the idea is to encourage people to use less power at times when demand is greatest - my point is that the incentive to move usage away from that time window should mean that ALL off peak usage is counted when calculating peak versus off-peak consumption… right now there is no incentive to move usage out of peak weekday and into off-peak weekend - and I suspect a lot of people who are close to reaching the ‘reward’ target would actually have reached the goal if their weekend usage was included in the calculations. Just a thought …
Its an interesting debate. Maybe OVO Energy will innovate the current Power Move over time so all power shifting counts towards the monthly target. I’ll be watching this space!
If OVO calculated the weekend usage into the equation, then EVERYONE would meet the 11.25% target monthly, unless OVO also includes the 4-7 pm peek time, in which case I don't think it would make a difference. If you didn't use utilities during the 4-7 peek, 7 days a week, then the average would be roughly the same as M-F 4-7 pm. You still need to use the same about of electricity. As an example: If you didn't do laundry at all during the week, and did it all on Sat - Sun except 4-7 pm, you would still use the same amount of electricity during the 7 day work week (Power Move - 7 dpw). Now, if you do all your laundry on Sat & Sun (Power Move only Mon thru Fri), your usage for that period would go down. The way that I do it is, I do my laundry M - F, EXCEPT during the 4 - 7 time frame. This pretty much guarantee 's me that I will meet my daily quota of less than 11.25% daily !!!!! Confusing, I know !!! 😆😵😵😵🤔🤔🤔😄😄😄 🤑🤑🤑
It’s a good point, well made! However, I suspect if weekends were included the target would be lower, because the peak time would be a smaller proportion of the total time. For example, 12.5% is 3 hours out of 24 hours, so the original PM target of 12.5% effectively challenged us to use electricity evenly throughout the 24 hrs! - which is what would be best for generators. However, 4-7 M-F is 15 hrs out of 168 hours total in 7 days - 11.2%!
+1
- Plan Zero Hero
- 124 replies
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22 February 2024
The part of Power Move that you can't see is DUOS - Distributed Use Of System - charges. These are charges levied by the DNO (Distribution Network Operator) depending on the time period that the utilities suppy power to their customers. From 4pm-7pm on weekdays is the Red period, the DNOs charge about 9p/kWh. Amber time is 1.7p and Green time (0-7, 23-24) is 0.05p. There is no Red time at weekends. There is therefore no financial reason for Ovo to include weekends in the Power Move calculations because they are not penalised with high charges then.
The golden rule of contracts (DNO to Ovo and then Ovo to Customer) is that they must be back-to-back otherwise there is a financial risk somewhere. Ovo can only afford to pay the monthy discount if they save money by you not using during the Red periods. They don't save money (to pass on to you) if you use power 4-7 at weekends because they are Amber periods.
I hope that helps clarify the situation. For further reading look up DUOS Charges and Time Bands. Each DNO can have slightly different time bands. I've quoted from SSEN documents for the 2022 settlement.
Process is looking at the national grid, so weekend usage has far less demands from business use. So reduction in domestic use on weekdays is a factor that can be managed to smooth out the peaks.
I consciously turn every bit of power off Monday to Friday except my freezer. I use candles to see ipad to watch TV put my heating on two hours before. Its a bit of a faff and to be honest I probably am not prepared to do the same at weekends. I work all week so I'm happy to suffer it during the week and eat after 7pm but my weekends are for relaxing and enjoying my home. I have achieved the £15 discount for the last 6 months but now spring is upon us the goal posts are moving so I would opt out if weekends are to be included.
Well l try my best. doesn’t always work sometimes l might achieve the hour ones. can be easy then the month ones. though l had email the other day and they said l did well for this month so have earned £3 towards my next bill.
There are no defined weekend peak periods. The majority of customers change their habits at weekends. Some may cook a roast Sunday lunch, many will eat out on Saturday night or order a home delivery, I tend to do my laundry and cleaning at the weekend but times when I do these chores are random.
I can't imagine it going down very well if hard working customers had to organise their Weekend leisure time for little return. No-one would take part.
If the point of ‘PowerMove’ is to shuffle power usage away from the peak 4-7pm weekday times surely it makes no sense not to count weekend usage when calculating target averages. If over the course of a whole month I’ve shuffled a significant amount of laundry, batch cooking and other power intensive chores away from weekdays and into the weekend - but Saturdays and Sundays are ignored when calculations are made - then my actual monthly off-peak average isn’t being accurately recorded for the purposes of meeting the target. In order to reach the target I need to shuffle usage in a 24 hour window, 5 days per week - rather than across the week as a whole - and concentrate usage to off-peak hours during the week … if this is about changing habits, surely whole week, or even whole month usage needs to be included when calculating averages … or am I missing something ?
I have solar panels so any power move at this time of year is impossible
In Power Move calculations, weekend usage is completely ignored. Your percentage usage is calculated on 30 minute readings between 4 and 7 pm Mon-Fri. The purpose is to shuffle usage to off peak periods during the week, not shift everything to weekends creating further peak periods.
It ain't rocket science ! Folks come home from work or school during peak weekday periods and everything gets turned on. Cookers, televisions, dishwashers etc.
For the purpose of this scheme, monthly isn't actually monthly, only the weekdays during any particular calendar month - maybe twenty or twenty one days.
As a demand management tool, Power Move is far from perfect.
Unlike Power Move Plus, it does not give each user an individual usage target. Instead, it takes broad-brush approach to demand management by (a) targeting %age of daily usage and (b) making only non-bank holiday weekdays eligible.
This gives rise to a lot of complaints, misunderstandings and some perverse incentives.
Complaints: If you don’t like Power Move just leave. It is optional.
Misunderstandings: Surely by now these have all been covered many times on the forum. Please read previous posts before raising a repeat query. Also
Perverse incentives: I, and others, have pointed out that you can boost your chances of getting a Power Move rebate by shifting heavy usage tasks from the weekend to weekdays. It doesn’t do anything to reduce peak demand but it does work to our benefit so I guess Ovo just have to put up with users doing every they can to get the rebate each month.
Hey
All, if there’s a list of questions you all want answering I can collate them and forward them on to the Power Move team to answer.
The first being why aren’t weekends included in the target.
If there are any more questions you’d like me to put to the team that haven’t already been answered in an official capacity please comment below 🙂
I’ve spoken to the team who have advised, with including the weekend usage it would be quite complicated in practice without changing the whole proposition structure. However, we are always assessing the impact of Power Move & looking at new ways to iterate in order to maximise the positive environmental impact & the customer experience. It’s on the road map to look into adding weekends to the modelling, and is something that’s being looked into.
Why would anyone want to add weekends to the equation anyway - it’s two days you get off and don’t have to think about whether you can have a couple of cups of tea and don’t have to say to your girlfriend “No, we can’t play Mario 3D World Co-Op on the big telly til seven!”
We’ll just have to see what happens won’t we. l try my best not always the case. it’s quite difficult at times. like the cuppa so why should you go without. but anything else if l have dinner to do that is a bit later. we use to that now.
It’s a good point, well made! However, I suspect if weekends were included the target would be lower, because the peak time would be a smaller proportion of the total time. For example, 12.5% is 3 hours out of 24 hours, so the original PM target of 12.5% effectively challenged us to use electricity evenly throughout the 24 hrs! - which is what would be best for generators. However, 4-7 M-F is 15 hrs out of 168 hours total in 7 days - 11.2%!
That was my reply 5 months ago when weekend inclusion was proposed. Now we have it for the summer! But where are my sums wrong? The original target was 12.5% for the minimum discount. With weekends included in non-peak, the equivalent is 11.2%. I have a feeling there’s more to it than that because the target we have now is 8.5% - significantly lower - and all you get for that is less than the price of a cup of tea!
We are low users and, let’s face it, who wants to stay in and use energy all weekend during the summer? Better to go out and buy that cup of tea surely? So we’re not trying during the current challenge. We’re on about 10% so far.
Hey
We have a thread which i’ll link below that’s got a lot of discussions since weekends are now included! I hope this helps 😊
Thanks for tagging me. Yeah, my calculator obviously malfunctioned :-) Should be 8.9% not 11.2% so not so far out after all. I’ll join the other thread.
Glad to hear that your calculations are more in your favour!
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