We're opening up Power Move to all eligible OVO customers

Hey @decroisic,

I’ll ask the team for an update on this and get back to you. 

Hey @decroisic,

Good news! Got an update from the team...

We are hoping to scale to 100% of all smart customers soon, please advise it will be open shortly to them. 

Hi Emmanuelle - well, we’re now into august - the start of a second month opportunity for some to take part in path to zero with the incentive to claim a reward for reducing peak energy usage - but I’m still not invited: A smart user that was part of the original trail and so eligible for this role out.  I achieved the target last time, every month (with a effort not ease) - makes me wonder if that is what is delaying my invitation me ‘cause I cant think what else could be?? The only other thing I can think of is that I'm still on variable - is that was is delaying my invite? 

Hi @decroisic from my understanding the go live date for scaling Power Move to 100% of eligible customers was happening today but is slightly delayed.

We’ll make sure to keep this topic updated when that happens. Till then only a % of visitors will be able to add it via their online account. 

Thanks for the update Tim

tl;dr

It isn’t clear from the documentation for this exercise whether a Peak Move challenge involves reducing peak usage by a percentage or to a percentage, or indeed at all, so long as it’s below a given threshold. Whichever of these is the case, it’s not clear how any required reduction is measured.

The documentation refers to non-essential use. If it’s not essential, we should be encouraged not to use it at all, not just move it to a greener time. 
  

I’ve been looking again at the PM documentation, and the more I read, the more confused I get.

This is pretty unambiguous (from OVO Energy | Power Move Terms and Conditions):

• Power Move is a series of quarterly challenges that reward you for shifting your electricity use to greener times.

So is this (from OVO Energy | Power Move FAQs):

• For Peak Move challenges, this target will be a percentage by which you need to reduce your peak time ... electricity use. 

So, if the target is 12.5%, I’m supposed to reduce my peak time use by 12.5%, right?
In 2023Q2, I used an average of 3283Wh each day. During peak time, I used 303Wh on average. So to complete this challenge, I have to reduce this consumption to 265Wh by shifting 38Wh to some other time. Big deal!

In the FAQ, this is how OVO determine whether the challenge has been met:

• Peak Move … Your peak electricity usage must be 12.5% or less of your daily use …

That’s not the same thing at all. I could increase my peak usage by 40% and still stay below 12.5% of daily usage. I can’t see any details of how the primary requirement -  ‘shifting your electricity use to greener times.’ is measured. There would have to be some base line from historical data to measure against, but there’s no mention of this in the documentation. 

Then we have:

• Peak Move - we’ll ask you to shift your non-essential electricity use out of peak times

Aha! So it’s only non-essential electricity that has to be consumed at some other time. How do we - or OVO - determine what is essential and what isn’t? Surely if it’s not essential, we shouldn’t be using it at all. We all try not to waste electricity, so what we do use must be classed as essential, right? I guess that what this is intended to mean is that electricity which has to be used sometime (i.e. is essential) is consumed outside of the peak-time window. That’s not quite the same thing; it looks like it’s the time of use that’s not critical for this category of consumption, for example running the washing machine. The machine has to be run (i.e. its use is essential), but not necessarily between 4pm and 7pm.

Again, looking at my consumption for the past few weeks, I see that the average power draw during the quiet hours (midnight - 7am) is 64W. This represents the consumption of things like my fridge and freezer, IHD, fire and other alarms, security lighting, three clocks, my indoor climate monitor, my Internet modem/router (without which some of the others wouldn’t function) and four timers that ensure that non-essential stuff is switched off at night. This gives a reasonable base line of essential consumption.

The power draw in peak time averages 92W. This tells me that I’m drawing 28W that could perhaps be not drawn for the purposes of this exercise. It’s difficult to pin this down, but it will include the on-all-day wireless and computer, plus the odd cup of coffee and perhaps heating something up for supper. Foregoing all this would reduce my peak-time consumption by 83Wh, well above the 38Wh I would need to shift to meet the challenge.

More clarity needed!

@Firedog having now completed the July phase, I can confirm that it is simply the percentage use, during that peak time, needing to be below 12.5% of your total use.  Like you, we already have a low overall usage figure so we set about ensuring that we use less between 4pm and 7pm

Thanks, BP. So this sentence in the FAQ for this scheme is just 180º wrong: “For Peak Move challenges, this target will be a percentage by which you need to reduce your peak time ... electricity use.”

Will @Abby_OVO or somebody please consider having the text corrected? E.g. to something like ‘For Peak Move challenges, this target will be a percentage of daily usage that peak time ... electricity use for the month should not exceed.’ 

It’s a bit surprising that there’s apparently no need to demonstrate that usage during peak time has in fact been reduced.

Hi @decroisic I’m happy to confirm that Power Move is now eligible to 100% of eligible  smart meter customers. You should see it available on your online account as of today.  

@Firedog there’s a summary of the Power Move methodology here:

I will flag your feedback around the Power Move content to the team in case any changes need to be considered. 

Thanks for the update Tim  - I’ve signed up.  As its 14th August, when am I being measured from in terms of the 12.5% target - from today or from 1st August??