Calculating whether you have hit the 12.5% target or not

Hi,

First thing is to remember that it’s only electricity that counts for Power Move, don’t forget to select “electricity” only if you are a dual fuel customer!

Next, remember to exclude from your calculations your usage during all Saturdays and Sundays (and any Bank Holidays) in the month, as these days are not included for Power Move calculations. 

The most accurate way to work out your percentage is in two stages:

First, add up your total kWh usage for each weekday during the month. The easiest way to do this is let OVO do the work for you:  at the end of the month (or indeed at any stage of the month) go into your “usage” link in your OVO account and add up all the OVO daily totals for your electricity usage for each weekday, skipping weekends and any bank holidays. Call this total “Total weekday usage”.  OVO do show a total usage figure for the month, but of course you can’t use that total as it includes weekends, which you must exclude for Power Move.

Second stage, now add up all your usage for each of the half-hour slots which are listed “after midday” for each weekday in your monthly usage stats, between 4PM and 7PM (that is, the six half-hourly slots in the crucial 4-7 segment: slot 4-4.30PM, 4.30-5.00PM etc. up to and including slot 6.30-7PM) as detailed in your half-hourly smart meter logs, accessible for each day by clicking the blue highlighted kWh total for each of your weekdays. It’s a lot of slots, 30 per week.  Again, don’t forget to look only at electricity, not gas! Call this total “Weekday 4-7 segment usage total”.

Using your calculator (!) divide “Weekday 4-7 segment usage total”  by “Total weekday usage” and multiply your answer by 100. That will give you your percentage total for the month for the crucial 4-7 segment, hopefully a number under 12.5. For example, an easy one would be Weekday 4-7 segment usage total of 40 kWh divided by a Total weekday usage of 400 kWh, equals 1/10, multiply this by 100 which equals 100/10, and gives you the answer of 10 percent. 

Summing daily percentages would be more of a guesstimate, and  even more work as there would be loads of percentage calculations, one for each weekday in the month, plus a final calculation.
 

Long-winded, I know, apologies, hope this helps!!

The only other thing to note is ovo use data to 3 decimal places but we are only given to decimal places, so the ovo figure will always be just slightly under the above calculation. 

True enough @Ria . Also, my example above cited an enormous user of energy, 400 kWh in 20-odd weekdays! Apologies for the carelessness there.

I suppose a slightly easier way for us to check the 12.5% at the end of the month would be to take the OVO total monthly figure for the month and then subtract the OVO figure for our usage for each Saturday, Sunday and any Bank Holiday. Slightly less unwieldy maybe.  
 

And, of course, we”ll make things easier for ourselves (and provide more motivation?) if we check our progress regularly during the month, maybe once or twice a week, and keep a note of our running totals as we go? Easier totalling at month end!

For the agile-minded and better organised amongst us I’ve seen posts from users about keeping a spreadsheet as the month proceeds (which will automatically happily do all our necessary calculations, provided we program it correctly!), and, further, I believe we can now download from OVO a daily CSV file of our half-hourly usage figures.  Remembering, too, your good point about the smart meter readings in such files being to two places of decimals rather than OVO’s final calculations being to three places.

@waltyboy have to laugh, I jot mine down in a book for each relevant day, old school method, saves electricity of a computer ha ha, and i have 2 extra columns of 0.005 off the daily total and the 4-7 total so when i do the cumulative calculation i know i will be between the 2 decimal and the 3 decimal calculation. Sept is my 1st full mth and i was spot on the ovo fig with my version of the 3 decimal figure at the halfway point so be interesting to see if i am at the end of the mth. If so i can drop the 2 decimal figures out of my book! 

@Ria I really admire your meticulousness…the significance (no pun intended!) between two and three places of decimals was something that hadn’t even occurred to me!  For October I’m definitely going to follow your example and start jotting down every day or so the running totals and doing the calculations;; this last month I’ve just been keeping a kind of fluffy percentage approximation in my head, not the best approach!

September will have been my first month of PowerMove, although I only joined on the 7th, so I’ll be interested to see how the calcs are done for part-month usage, and of course whether I hit the target or not…my quick calculations as of yesterday look OK so far, though, so fingers crossed!

In any case, I’m very interested in the whole Power Move thing anyway, and it’s great knowing there’s such a friendly group of fellow-customers sharing the interest.  It was such a relief when I spotted the forum, as I’d had a few questions the FAQ’s didn’t quite address.  This is the first incentive that I’ve been part of where we can actually aim to get cash back for trying to do our bit, and if we don’t make the cut for one month, there’s no penalty and we know we can try again next month.  It has raised my awareness of my precise energy usage, although I’ve always been careful with it anyway: twice daily readings over the last fifteen years (which I still do from force of habit!) even before my smart meter for example, but this half-hourly stuff is brilliant, and the newer IHD which I’ve had for a few months now is, for the first time really, a thoroughly useful tool for me that exceeds any measure I had access to before.

Cheers for now…nearly month-end already; don’t know how Autumn is suddenly on the doorstep quite so quickly!

@waltyboy  i am a low user so thought it would be difficult, but i have switched dinner to lunchtime, if not i wait til after 7 to cook which my stomach grumbles at. 

Need to experiment what half hr of different lights works out at over the weekend as i have ended up in the dark when i havent been in all day, because my usage is so borderline.

 I trialled my Aug figures initially before joining and was about 1.5% over without being conscious but then lighter nights i didnt mind eating later anyway and was outside more, but at the moment im 10.34% on 2 figs and 10.15% on 3 figures so 1 more day to add i reckon ive cracked it!

Its definitely made me more conscious and motivated to do chores especially anything electrically powered up to 4pm after that its what i call my time!

@Ria my tummy wouldn’t allow me to wait until 7!
 

I wonder whether you can time your oven to start cooking at, say, 3.30 or 3.40, as a lot of the oven’s expense will be during the initial 15 mins or so when the element is getting the oven up to 180 or 220 or whatever? Once it’s up to heat, it then just clicks in and out to keep the temperature up.

Be nice to come home to all that lovely hot dinner! Mind you, I understand how some folk might worry about the oven being on while they’re out, but modern wiring and appliances are pretty reliable…if one’s not confident oneself it’s nearly always possible to get a knowledgeable friend/neighbour/relative to check the condition of the consumer unit (“fuse box”) and the cabling etc., or actually hire a friendly electrician, of course.

Good luck!

I think it is best to do the calculation daily, only takes a minute . Write it on the calender no need for spreadsheets. Instant feedback!

If you leave it longer the time to process the calculations becomes a pain and if you leave it until the end of the month its a bit like shutting the stable door after the  proverbial horse has bolted.

Keep it simple, smart.

Just got my end of mth ovo email and my (fig 1) daily figure and (fig 2) 4-7pm (i.e. 6.30) figures taken from the app with 0.005 taken off each of them has worked out exactly to the % calculation (cumulative fig2 divided by cumulative fig 1 to 2 decimal places) on the ovo email.

Cracked it, no need to jot down the 2 decimal figures anymore for fig1 &2. 

I am confused by the “Autumn” FAQ question 10, it’s led to a couple of questions I hope someone here can answer (based on earlier posts, some of you seem to understand this):

Ovo’s FAQ Q: Does my usage for the entire time slot (e.g. 4pm to 7pm) count towards my peak electricity usage?

Ovo’s FAQ A: No, we only measure your electricity usage in half hourly slots, from the beginning of the Power Move time slot until 30 minutes before the end of the time slot. For example, if the challenge time slot was 4 to 7pm then we’d count your usage using the 4pm to 6.30pm half hourly slots. Any electricity used in the 7pm half hourly slot would not be counted towards your 'peak' electricity consumption.

My first question: When I view my daily usage in 30min slots, is the reading at (e.g.) 4pm, telling me how much was used from 3:30-4:00pm, 4:00-4:30pm, or maybe the average of 3:45-4:15? For the sake of my following question I’ll assume 3:30-4:00pm but the principle still applies.

My second question: The above FAQ quote starts with “No”, so telling us it’s not actually 4pm-7pm usage, so when is it? FAQ quotes “...until 30 minutes before the end...” implying that they only take into account 4pm-6:30pm usage, which would only be 2.5 hours and a bit silly (and making the target easier to achieve). But the FAQ then says “...we’d count your usage using the 4pm to 6.30pm half hourly slots...”, which is 6 slots, so 3 hours.

My point: Depending on the answers to the above, is the Autumn “peak” 4pm-7pm challenge, actually using our power measurements from 3:30-6:30pm (or 3:45-6:45pm depending on the answer to my first question)? If so, is everyone being “prudent” at slightly the wrong time? And if not, why does the FAQ answer start with the word “No” to what is a clearly worded FAQ question.

Thanks in advance, sorry for the long post but i wanted to be clear.

Hi @Alandamore Yup, it sure is misleading!

But be assured, howsoever the slots or segments may be described, the crucial 3 hour peak usage segment is the 180 minutes from 1600 hours to 1900 hours, shown in your usage stats as the six half-hourly slots starting at 4PM and ending at 6.30PM. 6.30 here means from 6.30 to 7PM.

Why the “No” I don’t know, because it is the total of this six half-hourly slots that’s in question, but there you are!

That, of course, is only my understanding,  but I’m fairly convinced I have things right.

all the best…. 

You need to add up the half hourly  usage that shows for 16.00 to 18.30 inclusive as 16.00 is for the period 16.00 to 16.30 etc. So 18.30 is for the period 18.30 to 19.00 ie the end of the peak period of the challenge.

I think the no is there because the question says 4 - 7 pm but you dont want the figure at 19.00 because that is for 19.00 to 19.30.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the clarifications. Here’s a template for those with Excel (screenshot at the bottom) that you can use for the Autumn 2023 challenge (has my Oct 1st & 2nd data as a worked example) and below is how to download your full (“3 digit”, i.e. exact Watts/30min) data. Could be full of mistakes but yours to play with. This is using info provided by @Jeffus  (thanks!) regarding how to download your 30min readings, in Forum > Ideas > Export to CSV

It takes a few minutes to get your data the first time, but once you’re set up it’s very quick to repeat. No need to manually write or type any data, it can all be downloaded and pasted in (400 days worth). The below might look complicated but it’s simple steps (if you use Excel).

1. Go to https://smarttariffsmartcomparison.org/home and follow the chat bot. You’ll need to enter your postcode and your In Home Display’s GUID (16 hexadecimal digits, on the base or barcode, maybe under battery cover - this is IHD, not the meter’s serial), then create an account (needs email confirmation).
2. It took several minutes before my data was available. Have a coffee, log out and back in, and you should see graphs of your usage. Under the graph, click on the download icon “CSV DATA”. This (in my case) is 400 days of 30min readings.
3. Open this in Excel. The timestamp is “milliseconds since 1970”, the template above will make it readable. It is “oldest first”, you probably want to use Excel to sort it “newest first” (select columns A&B, Data → Sort, tick “my data has headers”, sort by “timestamp”, order “largest to smallest”). Note, it is UTC (=GMT), so the template will “fix” the peak times on any BST dates before the clocks change. This does mean it will only work this Autumn/Winter, and need an edit next year.
4. Select columns A&B from the sorted CSV, copy, and paste over columns A&B in the template above.
5. Delete (option: “shift cells up”) cells in columns A&B for any dates you don’t want to include in the analysis (probably, most of it!)

Hope that helps! Use at your own risk and sorry if it’s full of mistakes (but, it matched my OVO account usage 😀)

@Alandamore Absolutely fabulous, that, great instructions and what a brilliant way to accurately monitor (and record) our data.

Many thanks…

You’ll need to enter your postcode and your In Home Display’s GUID (16 hexadecimal digits, on the base or barcode, maybe under battery cover - this is IHD, not the meter’s serial), 

New to this sort of thing.  Why is it keyed to the identity of the home display (which I thought was a semi-disposable unit) and not some serial number of the meter (which is permanent)?  Is it the same procedure for all such displays (I have an older SSE one, which looks nothing like the IHD’s that OVO have now)?

IHDs can have a CAD (Consumer Access Device) feature whereas the meters do not. Looks like that tool uses the CAD to get in. Either that, or it uses the CAD/GUID as a way of proving ownership of the supply.

Spot on. The IHD is uniquely linked to the meter by its MAC address and so can be used to identify the consumer. The MPxN and indeed MSN might be discoverable by a third party, but only the customer will be able to give the IHD MAC address. This is what n3ergy’s sign-in page says, for example:
 

Thanks for explanations @Firedog @Blastoise186 .  I can see now that the IHD is an authorised terminal (with 1:1 connection to its meter), and not a dumber thing like a light switch or a TV remote.  FWIW I found the EUI in its settings menu. Anyway, let’s see what my data look like.

PS. Lots of specialist terminology variation here! Are these the same thing, or slightly different? Is there a dictionary of these somewhere?

• MPxN
• MAC address (generic to comms tech, e.g. my laptop’s “Ethernet address”?)
• CIN
• EUI-64
• GUID
• CAD

MPxN = the identifier for the supply, MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number) for Electricity and MPRN (Meter Point Reference Number) for Gas

MAC Address = Media Access Control address, a physical and unique identifier attached to all network capable devices

CIN = Customer Identification Number, mostly easy to figure out

EUI-64 = Complicated network stuff to do with IPv6

GUID = Globally Unique IDentifier - basically an ID number

CAD = Consumer Access Device, used to do fancy tricks with your IHD like allow third-party tools to see real-time usage data

Hi, I saw lots of downloads for my “power move” spreadsheet so it seems there’s a demand! As people are using it, I’ve updated it (same download URL):

Now it additionally accepts 30min data in the CSV files (different formats) that you can download from https://www.n3rgy.com/ and https://glowmarkt.com (my data from smarttarriff wasn’t updating, I emailed their support and they said it’s a prototype service, then activated my account on glowmarkt - that is updating).

Also extended the BST check to 2025 so it can be used for the next OVO challenges, and added a date range to compute over (and sanity check on the days), so no need to sort or remove any readings any more, just paste the whole first two columns of your usage data, easy! Spreadsheet now looks like:

Hi @Alandamore 

This looks like a fabulous way to record and download our usage data, for which many thanks.

However (there’s nearly always a “however”!), I notice you mentioned …. (my data from smarttarriff wasn’t updating, I emailed their support and they said it’s a prototype service, then activated my account on glowmarkt - that is updating)…, and this made me consider my own problem, possibly starting from when I created an account at smarttariffsmartcomparison a few days ago.

Since that time every time I login the account unsuccessfully attempts to download my data, constantly showing, every time I log in, the message “data downloading, estimated time 19 minutes 45 seconds”. Coincidentally, two days ago my OVO usage data suddenly stopped showing any electricity figures whilst still showing half-hourly figures for gas (I’m dual fuel). 

It’s now suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether the constant, unsuccessful efforts by smarttariffsmartcomparison to download my electricity data are somehow freezing out OVO (and myself) from viewing my half hourly electricity usage figures? The smart meter (Kalia MA 120) seems fine judging by the impeccable gas usage half hourly figures, and the IHD is behaving normally, too. 
 

Do you think that it’s possible for my usage figures to be blocked from my view in this way? And, more crucially for my October Power Move efforts, possibly from OVO too. Even if that is the case, does this mean my electricity usage data for the last few days is lost?

Apologies, not being very technical, I hope I’ve explained myself fully and am not missing something obvious here.  Below please find a copy of an email I’ve just sent to smarttariffsmartcomparison:

/copy of my email to smarttariffsmartcomparison =======================

I have logged in several times over the last few days to my new smarttariffsmartcomparison account and on each of the 4 occasions it’s given me the message “data downloading, estimated time 19 minutes 45 seconds” while the little downloading circle just spins around and around.

The worry for me is that over the last few days that I’ve been trying your site, my energy supplier account has no longer been showing my half-hourly usage figures for electricity. Could your efforts to download my electricity data be somehow preventing my meter exporting data to OVO?

The half-hourly downloads have previously been working fine all through September, up to and including 2nd October; the gas ones are still showing half-hourly no problem (I’m on dual fuel), and my IHD is performing fine as ever.

Is it possible for you to interrupt the attempts to download my existing data so that OVO and I can hopefully retrieve my half-hourly usage again?

===============/end of copy of my email to smarttariffsmartcomparison 

I’d be so grateful for any thoughts you might have on this, or indeed on how to “release” my missing half-hourly electricity usage figures for the 3rd, 4th and now also the 5th of October. and in the meantime of course I’m hoping for help from Hildebrand/Glowmrkt.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this Forum this sudden cessation of figures on the 3rd Oct, and received some kind and encouraging replies, but have on,y just considered the possibility of a smarttariffsmartcomparison impact in some way?? It’s very odd, at the very least a strange coincidence, because all through September up to 2nd October the half hourly electricity usage figures were flawless and thoroughly reliable.
 

Many  thanks in advance…

There have been for the past couple of years cases of smart meter data being unreliably transmitted around the move from one quarter and tariff to the next. Not all customers are affected and only a few notice. I can’t explain what happens, but I’ll make some guesses:

Meters all have to be reconfigured for the new tariffs. This couldn’t possibly happen for all the millions of consumers simultaneously at midnight on 30 September, so I suspect it’s done in manageable batches over a period of days. While this is going on, with data flying in all directions, I suspect that some accounts are put ‘on hold’ until the entire smart meter data system has settled down after the upheaval. 

Meters will still be storing their own data (midnight readings and half-hourly usage figures) and transmitting them to the DCC. This is where OVO and other authorized collectors get them from. I think there are systems in place everywhere to check whether everything has been retrieved, and if there are any chunks that haven’t, the recipient will try again - repeatedly if necessary - to retrieve the missing bits. This may take a few days or, in a few severe cases, weeks. 

However, it’s most customers’ experience that any gaps are indeed eventually filled. We don’t always learn about this; people are quick to report missing data here in the forums, but not all of them come back to tell us when it’s eventually sorted itself out.

It’s always a problem when multiple clients try to retrieve large quantities of data from the same database at the same time. There will be collisions, and systems are in place to ensure that they all get what they want eventually. You can, I’m sure, rest assured that while one client’s attempt to retrieve data may delay another’s, the data themselves remain inviolate and they’re still there when the second client tries again a few seconds, minutes, hours or days later.

Patience is always a virtue when things like this happen. Unless not everything has fallen into place by the time the next statement is due - for most customers, at the end of October - my suggestion would be to keep calm and carry on; they also serve who only stand and wait [insert more appropriate clichés here as desired].

PS

You might find some comfort or otherwise in this thread, one of several, that started just a year ago on the topic of missing data on and after 1 October:

I think the smart meter conundrum is that people who were sold on the idea, expected a constant flow of information and, as we’ve learned from OVO’s own smart meter experts, that was never going to be the case. 

I’ve seen my own data ‘drops’, flaws and missing pieces but it’s an interesting point about data recovery. 
I think that suppliers poll for meter readings when required but it appears that this can be suspended when there is an increase in data updates such as at tariff change. 
Whilst overall the data is recovered, it’s not always back filled with half hour slots as this is not as important for billing (except for ToU). And so generally what will be seen is daily information and billing meter reads but not necessarily all data recovered. 
What I do see, through all communication issues is full information from my in home display (IHD) and even more information from my Glow unit, coupled with the Bright app. Perhaps this type of locally coupled device is the better route forward for monitoring your usage as it doesn’t depend on transmission over more than a few metres.