Ridiculous! OVO just notified me that my costs are going up by £100+ per year from January because of the new energy price cap. At the same time they are expecting me to use even less peak time electricity for the same paltry reward. Are we actually heading towards another dark age because of the incompetence of those running the grid and the nonsense of gas and electric price linking? I won't say fixing because that wouldn't be woke and I might upset some tender soul!

My electricity is supplied by the wind turbines I can see on the beautiful Scottish hills from my bedroom window yet I pay more for my energy than someone, say, in Manchester to whom I, (we) export our excess energy.

Sitting in a cold, dark room, looking for crowd funding to start a candle company and pondering why I ever cared enough to join this challenge in the first place.

Storm predicted for Thursday, should be plenty of driftwood on the beach to keep the garden firepit going over Christmas. Never had barbecued turkey before ? and it gives a whole new meaning to pigs in blankets, as long as they not electric! On the side, we will have sprouts in duvets,  arctic jacket potatoes..............slowly losing the will but contemplating writing one!

Some info on the link between gas and electricity

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/why-is-cheap-renewable-electricity-so-expensive/

The link has gradually reduced due to CfD contracts, the Electricity Generator Levy on excess profits, energy companies buying electricity in advance direct from renewable generators etc.

Might be an interesting exercise to find out if your local wind turbines are on CfD contracts and how much they get paid or if they are on floating contracts making excess profits due to the link to gas in the spot market.

One quirk currently is that another energy company, say Octopus may buy all the electricity in advance from your local wind turbines via power purchase agreements. OVO may actually be buying the electricity you are paying for from a completely different location. You may not directly benefit from the price of electricity at from your local wind turbines.

I'll probably look at opting out now. No point. Currently we're at just over 10% for December which is ok, but on the original power move we usually JUST managed it, coming in around 12%. Too much effort for a potential £6 credit for people whose lives don't necessarily fit the 9-5.

I guess OVO have been paying out too much and need to claw back our money.

Annoyingly I can't even sign up for other similar schemes (like Loop etc) because despite OVO getting my energy data, it seems no third party can access my electric usage via the DCC due to some issue that no one is taking responsibility for.

Not happy with this new way of doing the scheme, especially as I missed out on November because of yet another meter issue.

This new challenge does make sense to me.

The new 'sliding scale' method does give those who were just outside of the previous 'cliff-edge' targets a chance to get a reward.

And the sliding scale gives an added incentive to think a little harder about your peak use, and maybe try to get into the next reward bracket.

Personally I would have liked to see the rewards a bit higher, at maybe £10, £15, and £20.
I think that would give more people a bigger incentive to try, but I guess the payment pot is limited.

PS, It’s not mentioned above, but if you are already taking part in the Nov- Dec Power Move then you should have already been enroled in the new Jan-March one.

Have you tried this recently?

https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

What does it say?

@IanFerguson I’ve been reading today that the grid can’t cope with all the electricity generated by wind turbines so they switch that feed off & get the gas power stations to supply them instead…https://news.sky.com/story/amp/britons-paying-hundreds-of-millions-to-turn-off-wind-turbines-as-network-cant-handle-the-power-they-make-on-the-windiest-days-12822156

so it’s not a generating problem it’s an inefficient/ insufficient grid that’s actually the problem.

If the grid were to be beefed up there would be no need whatsoever for the hugely hazardous BESS sites to be springing up to cream off the excess power to sell back to the grid at exhorbitant cost!

It’s worth checking at Power Move - OVO Energy. I just did, and I was invited to join. It wasn’t until I’d done so that the little Joined sticker appeared:
  

The missing sticker may not mean anything, of course, but belt & braces doesn’t hurt.

I have updated my monitoring spreadsheet to show the 3 different targets. Anyone who wants to can access it here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kb-NcsC58Oh5cIr0nEM4MNgBxdnuYQan?usp=sharing

I've strived, sacrificed and re-organised my life for the past three months to successfully reach the targets.

Now they want even more! New Year targets have even less incentive. So goodbye folks, I don't appreciate being taken for a mug. The fact is if the energy companies can't cope during peak periods then I am entitled to compensation anyway !!