Nonsensical target for Power Move Plus

You’ll normally get a message at https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview if your stuff is deleted. I get loads of them about reports I’ve made which were dealt with.

What I will say is that your comment may have been reported by one of us forum volunteers while we were patrolling the forum. It was not my report, so I can’t tell you who may have done so.

If you think you missed it OR you want to appeal: forum@ovoenergy.com is the place to take up the matter with the forum moderators.

Thanks, but I am already thinking this forum, like so many, is not worth the bother, like the Power Move targets.

I will now just continue with my official complaint through the recognised channels.

@decroisic  got my Power Move Plus results too!  

I had the same target of 0.1kwh and my 5-6pm usage on the day was 0.07kwh. I sat with nothing on but my absolute overnight basics of fridge/freezer, router and alarm clock which adds up to 0.07kwh, so thought i will get under by 0.03kwh therefore expecting 9p.

However not the case.  I added up the 5 &5.30 pm figures for 10 weekdays of 1/11 to 14/11 (day before the email invite) which came to 1.37 ÷10 so average 0.14kwh. On the day actual for the hour was as expected at 0.07kwh and so I dropped 0.07 x £3 which gave me 21p!

More than my predicted extra brussel sprout🤣

So now i understand the calculation for next time.

Still cant get my Power Move mid month calculation to match, yet i always match the end of month calculation, so can only think that they take a different point in the day rather than end of a day.

Yeah way to go @Ria  - we got 21p :)  and much more than you were expecting! And as I was out for the hour it was 21p for free in my mind. Hopefully we will get an invite to a Power-move plus event at a time  outside of Power-move times and then we may even get close to getting a pound or 2! :) 

Mine was spot on. The figure in the email was 5.47%, and my own calculations showed 5.472% for the period 1-15 November (11 weekdays). 

How far out was the figure you were told?

@Firedog its 0.09% out. Never sure what date they go to but you saying 15th helped but im still out, yet end of mth always matches. Im also slightly outside target too. Amazing really as i ended up 11.54% for oct and ive now got a heater on for 2 separate hours in the early hours in an outbuilding trying to keep it around 10 degrees and nothing else changed apart from one day i got back from hosp with my dad and just couldnt wait til 7pm to start cooking dinner! However, 16th and 17th ive got back under so just need to stay there! Not dipping out on my £15!🤣

That’s not unlikely if you’re only working from the website/app figures which are rounded to two decimal places. It’s too much of an error though, and there’s something amiss, if you’re using three-decimal numbers most smart meters produce and which are available through various subterfuges.

Actually I have noticed that they are truncated and not rounded.

For example I know that my background use is 18-19 watts (0.018-0.019 kWh).
That’s devices that always run and never switch off, (smoke alarms, CH boiler timer, router, etc.), so my usage is never less than that.

In a half hour period where nothing but background is running (say the middle of the night) that shows on the website as truncated to 0.01 kWh rather than rounded to 0.02 kWh.

eg. I know that the three 0.01 kWh here cannot be correct, they have been truncated from 0.019. (the 0.04 and 0.05 will be the fridge kicking in for short periods).

PS. My half way email for November is 0.1% higher than my own 2-DP calculation to the end of last week, so about the same discrepancy as @Ria is seeing.

That's all those little 0.009's adding up in the OVO 3-DP calculation, but not there in my own 2-DP calc.

(Edit- I just had an interesting thought.
If I can add another 1 or 2 watts to my always-on background load then that will make it 20-21 watts, which the 2-DP online should then report as 0.02 kWh thus making my own 2-DP calculations more in line with the OVO 3-DP calc).

Hey @Lizziekent,

Sorry for any confusion, I can see your comment wasn’t deleted or removed. It is still on the topic, I think what may have happened was it was flagged as spam, which happens automatically. We then manually approved it. 

It is worth noting that power move plus is voluntary, you don’t have to partake in the scheme. 

Power move plus is OVO’s name for the ESOs DFS scheme, and we’re following rules from the ESO:

What is Power Move Plus?

This winter, OVO is offering customers even more chances to save. We’re taking part in the Electricity Systems Operator (ESO)’s Demand Flexibility Service to help customers reduce their bills this winter and reduce demand on the grid at peak times.

How does Power Move Plus work with Power Move?

We’re offering customers even more chances to be rewarded. You can take part in both Power Move and Power Move Plus to supercharge your savings this winter. 

With Power Move, we challenge you to shift your non-essential electricity use to times when the grid is greenest. We set new challenges with different monthly targets every three months, and at the end we reward you with energy credit for hitting the target. 

Power Move Plus offers you even more chances to be rewarded, with shorter, one off events. You’ll receive a personal target with each Power Move Plus event and be rewarded based on how much electricity you shift below the target.

Why am I being rewarded for shifting my usage out of a high price time period?

When everyone’s using power, and demand on the UK’s energy grid is high, there’s less renewable power (such as solar or wind) to go around. This means dirty fossil fuel generators need to be switched on to fill the gap to keep the lights on in the UK.

By shifting your non-essential electricity use away from peak times, you’re reducing the demand on the grid and our dependence on fossil fuels. You’ll be using electricity at times where the grid is likely to be greener.

And are still running our own ‘power move’ alongside power move plus which has rewards set by OVO:

The objective of the scheme is to help encourage customers to move usage out of peak times, reducing pressure on the grid, meaning less fossil fuels are burned. 

The suggestion that OVO have tricked their customers into cutting power usage goes against our community guidelines 5.1(a) which can be found below:

Well my complaint has been met 100% by an excellent OVO response!

A review took place into the facts and OVO have admitted errors have taken place in the calculations I complained about. I have received £50 compensation that fully covers the amount of “rewards” I expected. Great Customer Service and hopefully that could lead to.any other errors being rectified.