Why do I need to have a direct debit to sign up to Power Move?

Be careful - Pay As You Go is not the same as Pay On-Demand.

Pay As You Go is Prepayment where you pay before you use the energy by topping-up the meter. Pay On-Demand (what you’re on) is where you pay after you’ve used the energy by being sent a bill.

Please make sure to reference the right one!

Oops. I think I caused the confusion there. Pay On-Demand is what I meant.

It’s ok, everyone gets confused by it! :)

The DD process allows you to build up credit for use during the winter heating season. It could be POD fails after the peak winter month of January when the bills are highest and perhaps a family’s finances are at their worst after Christmas but I don’t have the data to support that.

The data’s out there somewhere - I just forgot where to find it again.

Likewise, for PAYG, Boost used to do an Opt-In based Winter Wallet thing where during the Summer months some of your credit would be sapped from your top-ups and placed into the “Winter Wallet” to help you save up, then during the Winter months it would be drip-fed back in alongside any regular top-ups to help see you through.

They were the only ones who ever did that and you HAD to have Smart Meters for it.

You can’t do these fancy tricks with POD!

Oops Me too, I also confused it - I really meant Pay on Demand.
As to meeting 55 years of payments month by month, without a slip - yes, because in my generation there were four most important principles - Roof over the head (pay your rent on time), Heating and cooking (pay for your coal, gas, electricity, oil etc on time), Food in the belly (pay your grocery bill on time) and finally go to work every day on time to make sure the money for the bills keeps coming in.

The way I see it is that how you pay your bill, DD, POD, or PAYG its your choice.

(Well not always with PAYG, but there's laws about ‘forcing’ someone onto PAYG).

Overall it's a question of if you choose not to pay by Direct Debit then you are also choosing not to take part in Power Move and possibly earn a reward.

I do sympathise slightly with those on E7/E10 who for the moment at least are also ruled out of PM. (Of course they could choose to switch to a standard or fixed tarrif too, but I doubt it would be worth it just for PM).

However in the end it's all ultimately the customers choice, (and having that choice means that it can't  be discrimination).

My whole point is I signed up early to be part of the trial and even though my account is Pay on Demand, I was perfectly acceptable. My achievement in power shifting was within the top 10% during this period. Now the trial is over, I am no longer acceptable, so yes, I do feel I am being discriminated against (irrespective of whether it can be officially categorised as discrimination). What was just a carrot to move energy consumption away from peak times, now has a secondary role (or is that primary role) to “persuade” customers to switch to Direct Debit. If I had been unacceptable and ineligible from the start, this post would never have happened.  

Pay on demand by Direct Debit was my method of payment before we moved to OVO Energy. This was withdrawn so I now pay the bill monthly manually. OVO and several other energy providers only allow for Direct Debit spread across the year and not debited per bill. Clearly this needs to change and might just persuade a few more to go on or back to Direct Debit. Better for OVO, better for some customers so its win-win.

I’m now missing out on Power Move as have a dual tariff meter but was doing this up until last month without a Direct Debit in place.

In addition to the answers I've already given I firmly believe it is up to individuals to decide how they pay for their energy. In looking around to see why people prefer to pay in particular ways I came across this piece by Martin Lewis which is impartial advice on payment methods and what you can do if a DD goes wrong etc. I've quoted Martin before and it is generally very good advice.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits/#variable

Personally I've never had any problems with DDs and the one time that I thought my credit level was too high I applied for and got a refund without any problems. I do appreciate that others have had problems in this respect.

Peter