Power Move con

Interesting stuff @Nukecad , took some research!

The one I’m amazed at is your 60 Watts for washing machine!
 

Mine is around 2200 Watts on its heating cycle alone (for low temperature 40 degree wash). That lasts about 20 minutes, so roughly 0.7 kWh all told, as the other parts of the low temperature wash cycles (rinse, spin, anti crease etc.) do use relatively few Watts, and are much quicker anyway. 

I ususally use a “mini 30” setting which is 30 degrees and runs for 30 minutes total.
That’s sufficent for worn once or twice, lightly soiled, clothing which is mostly what I am washing.

The manual says that cycle will use 0.17 kWh,  which I haven’t checked but seems about right depending of course how cold the fill water is.
I’m guessing that my measured 60w is just the motor as it tumbles the drum with no heater on.

(I do have it noted to do a full cycle usage test at sometime - with everything else turned off that can be off).

Remember that higher temprature, longer duration, cycles use more water per fill and more fills overall. So need to use quite a bit more power to heat all that extra water to a higher temperature.
eg. Say your mains water comes in at 20 deg, it will take twice as much power to heat the same amount of water to 40 deg than to 30 deg. (You need to heat it an extra 20 deg as opposed to an extra 10 deg).

Hi @Nukecad forgot to tell you, we followed your lead with the cool 30 degree wash cycle, and we now only do about one wash in three at our old 40 degree level. Makes a big difference to consumption. Occasionally white stuff even after going through the 30 degree wash shows slight staining and has to wait for the 40 degree wash, but generally speaking the 30 degree is just as good. I think “we” (hmmmm, you can tell from this who does most of the work in our house!!) use an extra rinse, or perhaps an extra rinse and spin.   And you’re right, it’s an phenomenally quick cycle. Anyway, a load was done yesterday morning at 30 degrees, air dried in the house over yesterday and today, and now by this evening is fully dry already.  We don’t use a tumble dryer.

One trick my gaffer has is to hang stuff outside from time to time which isn’t dirty as such but can still benefit from airing rather than being routinely washed every time…favourite candidates are dressing gowns and the car blanket, and my favourite disreputable winter cardigan (which in any case is a convenient grey colour!) can go longer between washes that way.  In winter or dodgy weather she uses our partially roofed garden arbour for the purpose, which is ideal as it means we don’t have to watch the weather too carefully while stuff airs.

Anyway, just a swift “thanks” for the heads up…we have a fairly modern machine but just had never before considered using a wash lower than 40 degrees…

Now I’ve reread the bumph, I guess I’ve probably misunderstood the brief. We don’t do much cooking at all (ready meals and takeaways don’t use much) and normally eat later than 7pm. I have economy 7 and put the dishwasher on at night, but I reckon that only saves about 10p a time. Laundry is done during the day I’m not getting up at 0300 to refill the machines, so savings are never going to be easy for us.

If you don’t use much power during the target hours, you are never going to be able to save much.

You don't have to do laundry during the night.

Do it during the day outside the 4 till 7 slot. Do it in the week rather than the weekend.

Sorry. Bad explanation on my part.

We already do pretty much all high energy use during the day so not much opportunity for savings in the early evening.

Perhaps I should start doing more between 4 and 7 to get our average up one month, then drop it to make the saving the next. ;-)

That’s not how it works, I’m afraid. What happened last month has no bearing on whether or not you’ll meet the target this month. You just have to make sure that your rate of consumption in the 4-7 slot is no higher than the average for a whole day.  

You may be able to see a whole week’s usage on your IHD, if it’s like the ones most OVO users get these days. Take your normal weekly usage and divide it by (7 x 24 = ) 168 to see how many kW you’re using on average. Then keep an eye on your IHD during the 4-7 slot; the figure for what you’re using now should be lower than this average most of the time if you’re to meet the target.

For example, last week I used 22.85 kWh; 22.85/168 =  0.136 kW

It doesn’t take much to reach that; it’s things like the TV running all the time might easily push it over the edge. Power-hungry devices like kettles, toasters and irons are really a no-no, although boiling enough water for a mug of tea might be all right if your usage is otherwise well below the average.

That’s a great way of calculating the percentage, logically very clear too…I don’t think I’ve seen that method before, plus it’s pretty well instantly do-able, given the modern IHDs. 

Thanks for that. Very helpful.

As @Sleepysusie said when they opened this thread, the many pictures of those lovely young faces from Gaza, Israel and elsewhere being hit or even killed through no fault of their own are truly heartbreaking, ditto for Ukraine; and the images from there of elderly villagers hanging onto their home in the midst of devastation and carnage all round seem hardly less heart rending. And added to the failings of our leaders and failings within our domestic energy provision, the sight of China and the US burning fossil fuels to feed our ever-more rampant Western consumerism including our arms industry does seem to be hastening the end of us all.

Within our own relatively prosperous corner of NW Europe I don’t count myself among the better-off financially, but in world terms, with my warm and dry house, my NHS and my State Pension I do know how fortunate I am, and when an energy provider like OVO comes along and offers me the chance of 15 quid a month to shift some of my usage about, I’m there! Bribe or not, £15 represents a sizeable chunk of my energy bill: my entire standing charge for a month, or nigh-on 50 kWh of free electricity or 150 kWh of free gas per month? That’s quite a major deal for me. Count me in! It’s the first time I can recall an energy provider specifically in a measurable way rewarding me for changing my habits for the better.

For those of us with EVs or with Economy7 or 10 heating, then a lot of heavier energy consumption can already be shaped around using non-peak energy, so those consumers might well find themselves well on the way to achieving the Power Move percentage, perhaps with further relatively minor weekday tweaks. For the rest of us, some of our household arrangements just don’t seem to allow the Power Move, and for some others the whole PM incentive is just not for them.

Well, it’s certainly not to agonise over, or to attempt to sit in the dark and cold over (dangerous, and definitely not advocated by anyone, least of all OVO). It’s hardly a heinous crime to use electricity, to bung a washload in or stick a pie in the oven or put the kettle on at whatever time of day suits a person or best suits a household. All OVO are doing with this incentive is ask us to consider whether such activities can possibly occur outside a specific few hours in the weekday, the peak 4-7 slot; if it’s possible, brilliant. One way of measuring this is to try to ensure that our peak weekday consumption is around the same, or preferably less, than the average of any other 3 hour period in our working day. Say, between 12.5% and 13.5% of our total weekday.

Seems a reasonable way to me of my doing something, however small, to help the community at large, and even if I don’t achieve the £15 reward, at least I’ll have thought about it and perhaps attempted something, however small. Until Power Move, I must confess to not paying much attention to my specific 4-7 consumption, concentrating instead on the general patterns of daylight versus nighttime consumption (because of PV panels). So it’s opened up a whole new dimension for me, and hints at further smarter tariffs to come in the future I guess, with ever more responsive measures on the part of us, the consumers. So, I say well done to OVO on this scheme, in my view I certainly don’t find anything to criticise in the Power Move incentive. Not in general terms, anyway, not as a concept. There are certainly tweaks that could make UK energy provision more relevant and less burdensome to, say, vulnerable or less well-off people, but this is a good start, I think?