Have you checked out OVO Energy Tracker?

I have some good news.

OVO Greenlight has been reinstated in the OVO Energy apps and is now ready to go again.

To get it working, please make sure to update the app to version 12.2.0 from the App Store/Google Play Store and allow CodePush to Sync so that your CodePush Version gets up to v271 after updating the app via the app stores first! Once you do that, you’ll see OVO Greenlight appear on the app dashboard.

Enjoy!

Well, it’s been a few weeks now since OVO Greenlight launched and Raichu has been submitting plenty of usage data to allow Greenlight to run the number crunching.

And I do now have some good news actually. It seems that Greenlight has decided that I’m actually not using 25kWh of eco juice a week on just the Fridges and Freezers and Always On and Standby categories after all and has now started to do a more realistic breakdown across a bunch of categories. Which is good to see.

There are one or two minor bugs I’ve spotted which I’ll write up shortly (all low impact, low priority) but overall I’m pretty happy with what I’m seeing now. It might not be perfect, but it’s definitely getting a LOT better than it was a few weeks ago!

@Blastoise186 @Jess_OVO I’ve been using Greenlight for a couple of weeks since my account was migrated to the new billing system,  there are a few things that are odd:

I can’t get the daily gas usage graph - I get the error message ‘Looks like we couldn’t find some of your usage data’

My only gas appliance that’s used now is the gas hob, but the breakdown shows that most of my gas use is ‘water heating’.  Question 6 do I have a water heater? is misleading. I have but it’s part of the heat pump. Do I say Yes?

The daily usage graph for electricity seems to be one hour out, eg my hot water reheats at 14:00 but the peak on the graph is at 13:00 (poss GMT v BST?)

The Carbon Intensity Forecast is also an hour out, eg this is what’s shown today at 12:00… so it’s Moderate, despite the forecast showing Low from 11:30 ??? Which is it?

Thanks for the heads up on this one! I’ll need a couple of days to try and trigger some of these but I’ll keep you posted. :)

Great to hear you’ve been checking out OVO Greenlight, @juliamc,

Some well spotted inconsistencies there as well. I’m flagged these points up to the team behind this feature to see if we can get some clarification - bear with me as I’ll pop back once I’ve got an update. 

I’m finding it really hard to believe that with wall to wall sun for this 48 hour period there are 47 hours of moderate carbon intensity forecast!

In the past day there has been more electricity produced by coal than wind in the UK which is unusual but not unique. 

It is sunny but hasn't been that windy.

There is a lot of work to do to secure energy supply over the next few decades, even without phasing out gas central heating and the uptake of EVs

Lack of wind is more of an issue than lack of sun.

Really interesting point about the importance of different renewable sources, @Jeffus.

I was also unaware that wind powers us more than sun at the moment, @juliamc  - looks like by quite a margin according to this article which suggests 20% of our power was wind generated compared to 6% coming from solar (at the end of 2019 at least). These hot hot breezes aren’t cutting it at the moment it seems! 

The main bar graph "Your energy’s yearly carbon footprint"  on the app compares my carbon with a "home like yours" 

The bar graph on the website compares my carbon with the  "Average OVO home's impact" 

Why the different comparison? 

The more detailed info is "similar ovo home" on both the app and the website which i assume is the same as "home like yours" 

Some really detailed questions from both @juliamc and @Jeffus ! Good news is I’ve heard back from the team so strap yourselves in for some expert explanations!

 

The daily usage graph for electricity seems to be one hour out, eg my hot water reheats at 14:00 but the peak on the graph is at 13:00 (poss GMT v BST?)

The Carbon Intensity Forecast is also an hour out, eg this is what’s shown today at 12:00… so it’s Moderate, despite the forecast showing Low from 11:30 ??? Which is it?

 

You’ve hit the nail on the head in terms of BST explaining why the usage graphs are an hour out (our smart meters run on GMT throughout the year). For the carbon intensity chart its gets slightly more complicated and this is what the team had to say - 

So the way the carbon intensity work's is that it chunks time into 30 minute segments. The current time in carbon intensity's mind is the last full 30 minutes which has passed, so if we are at 11:59am then the last full 30 minutes would be from 11am - 11:30am so this would be the value for the current intensity on the top

now the bottom slider is a forecast for the next 48 hours. So if we are at 11:59am again for example, we add two chunks of the forecast together to get hourly values so that means as 11:30am-12pm hasn't passed yet and we combine this with the 12pm-12:30pm chunk.

A bit complex but my understanding would be that as the carbon intensity now is based on one half hour segment (the last complete half hour period) and the forecast figure is an average of two half hour segments - these might not match but the current carbon intensity level will be the slightly more accurate figure as its based on a shorter time period, does that make sense?

Well spotted on this one too. You’ve noticed some changes were rolling out (starting on the browser version) which will be updated on the app in the next few weeks. The wording and the way we calculate the average usage which your usage is compared to have both changed slightly so you may notice a discrepancy between the figures shown on the app until we’re able to get the latest updates shown there too. In case you haven’t spotted it our community volunteer, @Blastoise186  has written a great guide to how we roll out these app updates using CodePush -