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Why do I not have my Power Move credits?

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Carbon Cutter****

I have been taking part in the Ovo Power Move Challenge since the Summer, and have successfully reduced my energy consumption during peak hours most months to less than 8% of total consumption.

In early January I received am email from Ovo about the December Power Move challenge which said: 

Your smart meter can sometimes stop sending us readings. It usually sorts itself out, but we need a minimum of 14 weekdays' worth of readings to work out whether you've hit your Power Move target. This time, we didn't have this information.

Unfortunately this means you won't receive a Power Move credit this month.

I have emailed a complaint to Ovo to point out that they actually received 16 weekday’s plus 7 weekend day’s worth of readings, and therefore they could work out if I hit the Power Move target (My peak use for those 23 days was actually 2.8%). Their reply again said that they only received 14 weekday’s worth of readings, even though the half hourly usage figures for 16 days can be seen on my online account. Ovo put them there!

Has anyone else been refused a Power Move payment even though Ovo have received sufficient meter readings?

i am already preparing my case for the Energy Ombudsman.

Best answer by Blastoise186

The Power Move team has responded. They prefer to remain anonymous but are cool with me relaying what they sent over. They’re watching me these days, so they’ll ping me with any corrections if I somehow get this badly wrong.

The answer to your question that I couldn’t answer can be found in the FAQs. I’ll drop a link here so you can check them out. My contact has commented that the cut-off time will formally/officially become part of the T&C from February onwards - there’s still a bit more tweaking that needs to be done first.

The biggest snag that they’ve seen which causes these drop-outs is basically the sheer volume of activity that goes through DCC (and the infrastructure as a whole!) these days compared to the past. It’s getting more heavily loaded as more Smart Meters not only join the network (such as when a customer upgrades to Smart), but also when they get migrated to Half-Hourly Readings for both Billing and Settlement purposes. That in itself is a good thing - it ultimately gives the industry more data and insights to play with - but the downside is that it can slow down the capture process related to the data OVO needs to number crunch Power Move stats and credits because of the sheer volume of traffic going through the network and only so much capacity as to how much can be shovelled down the lines at once.

That’s the reason why you’ll sometimes get the “no communications” error - if your meter was consistently unable to submit by the deadline, the system has to give up and start number crunching whatever data it does have so as not to jam things up for everyone and get the weekly/monthly updates out within a reasonable timeframe.

The team is keeping an eye on things and will review whether to get the spanners out and bash the engines again until they behave if needed. Likewise, they’ll also consider adjusting the deadline if they absolutely have to, but it’s a tricky balance and isn’t guaranteed.

I hope this helps. If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to drop them here and we’ll answer them if we can.

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Blastoise186
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Hi ​@Pete in Dorset ,

It’s not, in fact, the Meter Readings that are used for PM calculations, but the Usage Data. If OVO doesn’t receive all 48 “readings” by the 8pm deadline, the system has to discard the day completely. This can happen even if the Meter Reading for the day gets through just fine as that is sent in separately.

It’s documented in the T&C for Power Move and unfortunately there’s not much you can do if you fall foul of this - it’s also beyond OVO’s control in 99% of cases too so your chances at the Ombudsman probably won’t be amazing.

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  • Pete in Dorset
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  • January 10, 2025

The half hourly meter readings are used to give you the usage data for each half hour period. The full 24 hour usage data for 16 weekdays is shown on my online account., so they can’t claim that they haven’t got the data.

Blastoise186
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I don’t work for OVO myself - I’m just a customer who helps out on the Forum as a volunteer.

Just because you can see the data, doesn’t mean it came in by the required 8pm deadline for Power Move to crunch it. I’ve seen cases where my own data doesn’t come in until 2pm on some days!

In all cases, it’ll show up for you once it’s in, but alas it must be in by 8pm for the system to accept it as valid for PM.

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  • Pete in Dorset
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Several questions spring to mind. Where does it say they need 14 weekday’s worth of data? Where does it say there’s an 8 pm deadline? I assume that’s 8 pm the next day in order to capture all 48 half hourly readings? Surely all the data goes straight into their computer system, so why does it matter what time it arrives? As you can tell I’m not very impressed with Ovo, and already have one case with the Energy Ombudsman over very late payment of FIT payments.

Blastoise186
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I forget exactly where the references are outside of the Forum, but that’s an easy fix - I have a contact for that who can refresh my memory.

Getting the data into OVO’s system isn’t just a case of Meter → OVO. It’s more like Meter → Arqiva/Telefonica WAN → DCC → Third-Party Adaptor → a bunch more systems → OVO. Multiply that by over 30 million executions per day, and it soon adds up, which is why the data doesn’t just show up immediately.

Even after that, OVO has only a limited time to crunch the data before it has to start processing the next day after that one...

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  • January 13, 2025

Hey ​@Pete in Dorset 

 

Sorry to hear about this, but I’m glad to see one of our volunteers has already stopped by with some really helpful advice on this. 

 

We’ve got a similarly related topic which may also be helpful:

 

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Blastoise186
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The Power Move team has responded. They prefer to remain anonymous but are cool with me relaying what they sent over. They’re watching me these days, so they’ll ping me with any corrections if I somehow get this badly wrong.

The answer to your question that I couldn’t answer can be found in the FAQs. I’ll drop a link here so you can check them out. My contact has commented that the cut-off time will formally/officially become part of the T&C from February onwards - there’s still a bit more tweaking that needs to be done first.

The biggest snag that they’ve seen which causes these drop-outs is basically the sheer volume of activity that goes through DCC (and the infrastructure as a whole!) these days compared to the past. It’s getting more heavily loaded as more Smart Meters not only join the network (such as when a customer upgrades to Smart), but also when they get migrated to Half-Hourly Readings for both Billing and Settlement purposes. That in itself is a good thing - it ultimately gives the industry more data and insights to play with - but the downside is that it can slow down the capture process related to the data OVO needs to number crunch Power Move stats and credits because of the sheer volume of traffic going through the network and only so much capacity as to how much can be shovelled down the lines at once.

That’s the reason why you’ll sometimes get the “no communications” error - if your meter was consistently unable to submit by the deadline, the system has to give up and start number crunching whatever data it does have so as not to jam things up for everyone and get the weekly/monthly updates out within a reasonable timeframe.

The team is keeping an eye on things and will review whether to get the spanners out and bash the engines again until they behave if needed. Likewise, they’ll also consider adjusting the deadline if they absolutely have to, but it’s a tricky balance and isn’t guaranteed.

I hope this helps. If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to drop them here and we’ll answer them if we can.

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  • Pete in Dorset
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  • January 15, 2025

It’s good to have it confirmed that Ovo only need 14 weekday readings in order to work out my Power Move result. In December Ovo received 16 weekday’s worth of readings, which is more than enough to work out my peak hours usage.

Also interesting to read that the Ovo contact commented that the cut-off time will formally/officially be part of the Terms and Conditions from February onwards. This confirms that there was no cut-off time in December which was part of the terms and conditions, so all 16 weekday’s worth of readings should be included.

I’m still waiting for a response from Ovo regarding my request for my December Power Move reward.

Blastoise186
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The cut-off time has always existed since Power Move first became a thing. It just wasn’t explained very well. My understanding is that leaving it out of the docs was purely an oversight at most.

It’s actually been made more generous recently - it used to be 1pm-2pm!

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  • Pete in Dorset
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I’ve never seen anything about there being a cut off. Ovo can’t suddenly argue there’s always been a cut off, but we didn’t tell anyone and also forgot to put it in the terms and conditions.

Blastoise186
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It has been there even if it wasn’t well advertised. It has definitely become more obvious over time though.

Not everything has to be documented, but ultimately you have to draw the line somewhere to avoid jamming up everyone else just because one person hasn’t completed their task, so to speak. Eventually, you just have to boot that straggler out and process the rest.

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Chris_OVO
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Hey ​@Pete in Dorset, 

 

I’ve sent you a private message so that the Power Move team can take a look at the credits issue for you. You can check this link and i’ll keep an eye out for your response - https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview

 

Any questions please let me know.

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