App Usage and Clock Change impacts on Power Move Flex

Questions like this come up twice every year. I’m not sure that anything has changed this time, but I’ll keep looking once data start flowing to my account again 😡

I do have usage data in the app for 31 March, which was after the clock change. There was a PM Flex event that day, Power Down from 5-6 PM. I duly powered down, and in the app I see 00:00 in the kWh column for 17:00 and 17:30, so as far as I can see usage is now being displayed in British Summertime. Are you seeing something different?

The 31 March Power Down does look ok.  What I am seeing on my usage is that previous days seem to stop at 1am.  For example, yesterday (Thursday) the last full day’s usage that I could see was Tuesday plus Wednesday up to 1am.   Today I can see Wednesday’s full usage plus the first two half hour readings from yesterday.

I can’t help, I’m afraid, because OVO are really dragging their heels as regards my usage data. However, I do see a difference between the usage tables for 31 March and 1 April. March 31’s starts at 01:00, while April 1’s starts at 00:00. I suppose they found it simpler to change the display from 1 April and leave the previous two days’ tables in GMT-BST limbo. It will be interesting to see whether the PMFlex results for 31 March are properly allocated - I don’t want to miss out on my £0.02 reward! I’ll complain bitterly if that happens, but we won’t know until next Wednesday.

My reward for 31 March will also be in the order of £0.02 and my £3 reward for being 50% successful in March is already safe, so I don’t suppose it matters that much.  Would just be good to know it is working properly before the next event.

I’ll need to look at this a bit more closely, but it looks as if the crazy arrangement from last year’s summertime may have been corrected at last. I’m seeing just one hour’s usage on the page for 2 April at Your energy use - OVO Energy, so the figures for 23:00 to 00:00 GMT on the first are now carried over to the next day BST as they should be. I’ll put out the flags if subsequent days’ data exhibit the same behaviour. 

I first bugged this anomaly following the BST > GMT changeover in 2023. 18 months to fix it is probably par for the course.

Presumably what I am seeing for yesterday are the correct figures for 0000 - 0030 and 0030 - 0100, but because meter is still sending data to OVO at midnight GMT, the rest of yesterday’s data isn’t available to the App yet.  I think. possibly.

Problem seems to have been resolved sometime during today (Saturday)

Although my daily reading and clock issue eventually resolved itself, and all my half hourly readings are complete on the App, Power Move Flex monthly round up tells me that my “smart meter stopped sending readings” so they don’t have data for 31 March.  If my smart meter stopped sending data, how did the half hourly information for 31 March get to the App ??  I presume it stored the data and sent it later but Power Move Flex didn’t check later.  The loss of a potential 5p is terrible.

Join the club!
  

I think the combination of time-zone shift, tariff changes for the new quarter and the start of the next phase of MHHS trials proved to be just too much for the data network to handle, and I’m not certain they’re completely caught up yet.  

That’s much the same conclusion as I had reached.

Prompted by a different question, I discovered that this trial was scheduled to end on 25 March 2025. That means that the 31 March event shouldn’t have happened; even if all 40,000 customers took part, I doubt that any of them got any reward - a bit of right-hand/left-hand, by the looks of it.

It also means that whoever designs the template for the update emails has to go back to the drawing board, because the comment that ‘your smart meter stopped sending readings’ is just wrong. The meter would probably have delivered the usage data had it been asked to, but the left hand didn’t ask because it realized a few days late that the trial should have ended by then. Another change to the template they might consider is amending the Contact us link, which isn’t really helpful. This is a better place to direct to IMO: https://www.ovoenergy.com/help#contact_us_container. 

There are apparently more trials coming - let’s hope the PMF team get their act together before the next one. I don’t know whether the PM people monitor this forum group, but I’ll ping our contact there anyway, with apologies if he didn’t want to be disturbed just now: ​@Ash_OVO 🙂 

I am not sure if everyone got a bonus for being successful in 50% of events each month - I received £3 bonus if I achieved 50%.  I wonder if anyone missed out on their bonus because of the 31 March issue ?

Hey ​@Firedog & ​@DuncanL,

I’ve forwarded this topic to the team & they’ve advised your feedback has been taken into the designs for the next trial! 😊