Strange - my notification was for a Power Down event, which sounds likely, given what many customers will be doing at that time. There’s a possibility, I suppose, that participants who historically have higher or lower than average usage in a particular time slot are invited to reverse that behaviour. However, that’s not what happened in my case - my usage 12:00-14:00 on Sundays is typically about 150W, so I might have expected a Power Up request, which I didn’t get.

So how do I get someone in OVO to answer my question  ?

Hi @DuncanL,

I’ve checked this with the team who’ve responded saying they can be dependent on where you live. There are some events where Scotland will power up and the rest of the country will power down.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for that info.  I am not sure why they would want to have a Power Up when everyone is cooking Sunday lunch but perhaps they wanted to use up some wind power in north of Scotland.

We ask @Chris_OVO to ping his tame Power Move contact 🙂

… and …

Hey @DuncanL @Firedog,

I asked and got the response below that’ll add some more context for you 😄

“It's a trial so different areas have different usage profiles and also different constraints, as some have better infrastructure so as it's a trial, we're also testing if different areas can give different signals and requests at the same time as others and notifications going out at the same time for Power Up and Power Down”

Hopefully this answers your questions! If you have any follow up questions please let me know and I can get some answers for you.

Thanks for your help and explanation.   I was aware it was just a trial but didn’t realise they were testing differently in different areas.

I actually queried the matter with OVO Customer Service yesterday who said they would pass it to Power Flex Team - I hope they are not getting a bit fed up at having to reply to the same query several times !

If they tell me anything more or different, I will post it here.  

I had a notification yesterday at about 11:00 of a Power Down event from 12:00 to 12:30. Although my reactions may not be as quick as they once were, they were never fast enough for that. 

As it is, my average usage 12:00-12:30 for the previous 14 working days was 39Wh, so even if I’d thrown the master switch, I would only have earned 0.039kWh x £0.50 = £0.02 and saved £0.01. Much ado about threepence.

You are forgetting that if you saved the slightest amount that would have been considered “successful” and if you are successful in 50% of events, you earn £3.   It is one of the things in this trial which seems a bit daft - last month I didn’t really take part in some of the events as, like you, my consumption was so low there seemed nothing to gain.  By sheer chance, my consumption was a fraction lower in 2 of them gaining me only 1p each time but I ended up getting the £3 reward.

If I knew that, I’ve since forgotten it! I just checked: my usage 12:00-12:30 yesterday was 26Wh. My saving, then, was 0.039 - 0.026 = 0.013 kWh. If what you say is true, I’ve earned a brownie point 🙂

Firedog,

In 3 power down events last month I earned a total of 8p plus 28p from one power up event, coming to a princely total of 36p.  OVO messaged me to say that I had been successful in more than half events so I would get total of £3.36. 
Hopefully your brownie point won’t be rounded down ! 

Last Sunday lunchtime must indeed been a Power Up event for me as I have just been told that I earned 43p for it.  I think they must have gone back 3 Sundays to work out my average consumption base and included a Sunday that I was away on holiday. 

Wait a minute… Where it says? I don’t remember anything like that mentioned in my emails. Apart from different tariffs (for some it is 20p, for some it is 50p) there are different bonuses?

This what I keep being told -

I see. Nothing like that in my emails.

Perhaps they are trialling different incentives as well as different events for different people.

Abby, thanks for that answer.

Can you also tell me, when OVO offers a bonus for succeeding in 50% of flex events, do they mean the calendar month or my personal billing month ?  

Calendar month IIRC

Thanks Blastoise - not being up to date with my txt speak, I had to google IIRC !

Thought I had earned another £3 in November but OVO still haven’t sent a monthly round up.  Perhaps they decided they were being to generous.

If you’re talking about regular Power Move, the payout for that is likely to be by next week.

Check the app for more details!

No - referring to the PMF monthly bonus of £3 which I was being offered if successful in more than 50% PMF events in a month.