Shift & Save. Taken part in 3 but had not feedback from OVO?

Congrats on being accepted to the second trial. 

I would think of the trials as a one way street - you’re helping trial something new (and hopefully getting paid for it) and Ovo need real world data from participants, that’s about it. I get the impression the trials team are a relatively small group trialling lots of things at once so there isn’t a lot of capacity for feedback. 

But it’s all good, this is how we learn new stuff! 

Just received an email this morning. First saved nothing, second unplugged what I could turned lights off, but laptop screens etc had to stay on because I was working- only saved 10p!!!

Apart from plunging the home in darkness switching the lecce off from the distribution board - is it worth it?

I agree about the size of the team and that this is part of a learning exercise; however we are dealing with a large commercial organisation here, not an amateur organisation,

A number of posters here rightly complain of minimal or even no feedback at all and and an overall lack of communication about this which needs to be addressed. 

I am also part of the trial this evening and received the notification this morning.  Lack of proper notice and the time it’s happening make this tricker to do this time, but I’ll give it a go as I do see the longer term benefit this could bring, but OVO can you make a stronger effort on your comms please. 

I did get feedback for both the first 2 trials. I managed to save something on the first trial and got 18p credit. Wahoo! But, I didn’t really understand how it worked. I thought that I literally shifted some of my higher energy usage to another part of the day. I didn’t realise that they were challenging me to use less than 2.2kW over a 2 hour period and, if I managed to restrict usage to 1.2kW then I would have received £1 credit. That’s quite a tough task as our house seems to use 0.4kW per hour when we’re asleep.

But, now I understand that, I can see that today’s challenge is much more achievable. They’ve given a target of 1.7kW over a 1 hour period. Unfortunately, I didn’t read the email in time 🤦‍♂️

I wonder if these trials are under-resourced within Ovo. It feels as though we have been keen but not well directed.  I tried really hard to achieve the 12.5% reduction prescribed under “Power Move” and on joining the Forum looking for some help, learned I had been invited to take part in another trial “Shift &Save”.  I have heard nothing more and have no idea whether I ever will. I am becoming a little underwhelmed!  

In your sig, you detail your solar installation details.

So really you shouldn't even be taking part in the trial.

I guess with the sun going down before the trial  it doesn't make a huge difference where people might be running from the grid until later, after the trial.

I bet there are those who simply run from battery to take money from the trial whilst the trial slot is being monitored for usage and then use the same amount of power recharging the batteries or hedging their bets and doing it the next day if it's not been sunny.

How on earth did they let that slip through?

LOL

Gaz

You seem to be under the impression the trial is to make you money.

The trial is to see if people can move energy usage away from the peak period.

The number of people participating and legitimately getting rewarded for their efforts seem very few based on what many posters here describe.

The idea of sitting in the dark with everything turned off is no different to what would happen in the event of a power cut. It would be highly amusing if all those stupid enough to turn everything off to make money out of the trial are identified as needing no power during peak periods and selectively cut off when the actual real world need to save power kicks in.  The clear intention is to charge more for peak time power and less for off peak, hence the trial to see how successfully people can use power outside of the peak period rather than during it.

There were a number of criteria for people to take part in the trial, it's a real shame so many seem to think it's all about making money rather than saving on peak usage.

Gaz

Gaz

Surely if someone has batteries for solar storage its ideal to use them to shift their usage away from peak hours by switching to battery power. 

OK it's an incentive to see what we can save during the peak hours but what will it achieve we have got use to having and using power hungry items for whatever reasons.

No matter what happens we are still going to pay a premium for the electricity and gas.

Look what happened when the petrol went up everyone complained but we are still paying.

Yes, it is the ideal solution but thevterms of the trial  state that no solar PV, or other microgeneration, or battery systems could be used and properties with them were therefore exempt from the trial.

For me, if I wanted to cheat I could just charge the EV during the peak period every other day then on the day of the trial charge at a different time.

To avoid that kind of scam they changed the criteria to having to save beyond the figure they give you before any payment is made.

Remember, the trial is to see what the consumer can do to save power at peak, not what their kit can do.

In theory though,  if someone is running off grid during peak hours there would be no import and therefore nothing to save with the target being small so to cheat using a battery would take a bit of manipulation to get a certain amount of usage each day during peak which could easily be beat so would encourage people to maximise peak usage for 50% of the time then the average over 10 days might be beatable enough to save a couple of kWh but the effort required to con a couple of quid out of the trial isn't worth it.

Irregardless of criteria to be in the trial and if it's viewed as silly or not,  it only achieves anything if everyone takes part in the trial in a fair and consistent way with how they might behave if they felt they could shift some useage to off peak. 

Let's all do things fairly and accept the data has gone to good use, if we dont see how many pennies we made it doesnt really matter but is useful to see if we can do more. 

If we can do more then why wasn't more done in the first place?

Perhaps people need to get an understanding of why we are doing it in the first place.

Gaz