Is the new power move criteria a con?

Are you making use of weekends by any chance?

Yes we are. I think we have understood this fully

It’s 100% a con, I was always hitting the maximum and then they kept changing the requirements. I live on my own and am very strict with my usage in the peak hours and barely earn £6. I renewed my contract with them for 2 years because I liked the power move initiative and it’s now pointless. 

They aslo anger me because when they take my direct debit at the start of the month it puts me nearly £600 in credit. I am supposed to have a credit electricity account, yet they are taking hundereds of pounds of me as a pensioner living on £15,000 a year as interest free loans. I need to find a more ethical supplier, but I’m not sure it exists! 

Hi @Nick in Worcester  I understand your frustration. I have excelled in every other power move but this one, no! I don't believe Ovo would con us but I just don't know how to make this one work - so am binning it this month :(  …..and having my dinner exactly at the time I want :)   

I did everything I could  - only background elec (fridge, freezer, ok, and TV but that really is it) 6 - 9; all higher usage appliances (washing machine, cooking, kettle, hoover, lawn mower etc etc) out of peak time and / or on weekends and I still didn't make the £2 (which tbh, even if I had, I would have questioned if it was worth it - I do not want to eat at 5.55 every night and certainly not after 9.05!) 

First time I’ve missed the max since the start of Power Move… 6.53% missed by 0.03 - £5 not £10 - literally just using base power between 6-9pm - I’m of the opinion it’s not possible to hit this target unless there are more than 8 weekend days in the month. OVO must be desperate to save on the scheme. Will see what happens in Autumn challenge if it’s not back to £15 pm and a realistic target I’m OUT! 

Yeah, I agree. I’m binning it so we can live our lives normally. I’m horrified to hear you didn’t even make to £2. That is terrible. You clearly did the same as me!

Totally possible we used just 3.73% in peak hours this month. June we used 5.5% so that was before weekends were taken in to account but the threshold was higher. Thought it would be a bit of a struggle but we have done nothing different, I always do the laundry at the weekend anyway which never counted before. Dishwasher is never on at peak time and our EV is never charged peak time but is quite often charged at weekends which wasnt counted before.  There's normally at least me or my wife working from home a few days a week and we're done by 4'ish so that's extra power used during off peak, laptops, screens etc. Focus on using MORE off peak to reduce the proportion of peak useage, this is the key. It's all about keeping generation as low as possible at peak times to help generation and grid capacity it's NOT an environmental scheme total usage is nothing to do with it. You can be a really high user, we're quite high as we have an EV, and you'll make the target where as a low user won't it's all about the ratio of peak compared to off peak use. 

In the end it’s a choice. OVO would never ask anyone to make their lives impossible or even dangerous to achieve the targets. Some people, like myself, have an EV and they can charge out of the peak and this makes reaching the target a lot easier. However, you would also not want to be paying my electricity bill.

Proportionately, households using a small amount of power a month do much better than heavy users like me but find it much more difficult to meet the target. A few pounds off of my bill is hardly noticeable. A few pounds off a light user’s bill is probably quite significant. All OVO are asking you to do is to make an effort not to use peak time electricity and if you succeed then you are rewarded. It’s not a con as some users manage ok and we all have to meet the same targets. I will also be looking forward to going back to the same rewards that we had last winter.

Peter

Spot on!