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Hi @IanFerguson Good to hear from you, and that you’re enjoying the forum, it can get quite busy at times, but always enjoyable and informative. As indeed you say, what’s not to like about sharing ideas and viewpoints, and I’ve so far seen little or no abruptness or unkindness from one user towards another. We’re pretty much all in the same boat!

Vis-à-vis the PowerMove incentive, it seems to me as though you’re convinced there has to be a tangible, demonstrable reduction in people’s peak usage every month of the incentive, or else they won’t benefit at all. Am I right in that understanding?

But, here's the rub, some people like retirees are at home all day and may already carry out high consumption tasks outside of the peak period and their 4-7 usage is very low anyway. This section of users won't benefit at all as there is very little consumption to move to other times of the day.

It's a misconception to think that if you're doing it anyway you qualify for the discount - you don't.

Only those who are seen to be making tangible changes to their usual consumption  habits are going to benefit.

If I’m correct in my assumption that what you’re saying is in fact people who are already benefiting the Grid by maintaining “very low usage” during peak hours of 4-7 won’t qualify for the discount, then this is a very outlying view on this forum, I suspect!  Your “It's a misconception to think that if you're doing it anyway you qualify for the discount - you don't” would be rather bleak, I think, and most certainly a view which I for one definitely do NOT share!  For the folk who successfully hit the requisite 13.5% target over the month, they earn the discount however many tangible changes they make, or however few tangible changes they make, or even (in a minority of cases where people are already using 13.5% or less of their weekday totals during the peak 4-7 hours), if they make zero tangible changes. 

It’s not directly the degree, or measurability, or how tangible is a change in peak usage that qualifies, but rather the more indirect but still rigorously mathematical percentage figure that qualifies: it’s the ratio of peak usage to overall usage that’s being incentivised here.  As you and I both agree, I’m sure, that translates into reducing weekday 3-hour peak usage, but (and this I suspect is where you and I differ?) only and exclusively when compared to our overall 24 hour weekday usage, aggregated as a percentage over the relevant month..

Its purely mathematical, though, there’s nobody measuring how tangible the changes are that we’ve made, and nobody necessarily saying “sorry, Ian, no tangible usage changes from you during peak hours this month as compared to last month, so no discount for you even though you may well be below the 13.5% ratio…”

Good luck with it all, let us know how you are doing with PowerMove, it’s a bit of a tough call going into Winter, but quite a few people on the forum are aiming at it, that’s for sure! Provided we all remember we mustn’t cut back on basic 4-7 levels of warmth, light and indeed comfort and wellbeing. Misery most definitely is not what the incentive is about! 

Kindest regards…..

Hi, you make some great points particularly in regard to some who may try to work the system by switching weekend use to weekdays. However what you say in your first paragraph just seems to echo what I said. There must be a before and after comparison i.e. peak and off peak in order to arrive at a percentage regardless of whether it's averaged out over a month or a year or am I missing something? I'm completely amenable to being corrected.

Where I may have it wrong is when I intimated that those already hitting targets  would not benefit. I am not 100 percent sure of this. I do know that not every customer has been invited into the scheme so OVO may well be looking at historical usage before sending out the invites. I cannot see them giving away discounts to customers who don't have to make any changes, or am I just being a stereotypical old grump.

All the best. Ian

All customers should now have access - as far as I know. 
It’s all about percentage comparison rather than a before and after view. That differs from the last event last winter. 
Basically, looking to get users focusing on reducing peak usage compared to their general usage which helps reduce carbon emissions as it’s at peak times that extra capacity often involves higher emitting plant

Hi again Walt. I think I covered your main points about already low peak period usage customers and admit I may have it wrong but reserve the right to see evidence first.

However I do think your criticism of my use of the word "tangible" is off piste unless my many English tutors were charlatans! Tangible, visible, measurable, real, they all have the same general meaning.

I didn't at any time suggest that individual changes in habits were being monitored but if one reduces or switches peak usage such as cooking dinner to off peak periods the results are "tangible" and can be seen in the meter readings. whether or not averaged out over a month.

Moreover usage is being monitored continuously by OVO's Smart system otherwise I wouldn't be receiving regular "Well Done-You're on Track" messages. This wouldn't happen if there weren't "tangible" changes in my Smart meter readings which could only happen by "tangible" changes in my habits.  These changes aren't made by the usage fairy while I'm sleeping!

I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am? A lot may be away from the subject but thoroughly enjoyable none the less. Also keeps my rather elderly brain cells exercised. Rgds. Ian.

Hi @IanFerguson Hello again…absolutely no criticism intended, of your English usage or otherwise! I always try hard not to give offence, I do apologise for implying criticism.  My written word has come back to bite me on the proverbial at times in the past (general work emails and so on over the years, I mean) and so I always try to be careful. Lesson learned (again!), apologies once more.

Yes indeed, it’s good that the incentive does encourage us to make changes, especially in peak time. 
 

Tangible changes!

It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever received (directly, at any rate) a financial incentive for modifying my usage, so hopefully with more smart meters coming on stream and with ever-raised awareness, energy suppliers and their customers will start to get a lot smarter about usage and how to monitor and tailor Grid usage to the benefit of all of us…

Kindest regards, keep up the good work!! 

Absolutely no offence taken and I have to say OVO should be given credit for offering this scheme. As you rightly say these opportunities are rare. Cheers.

I have to agree that whether or not you already hit the target previously does not matter at all.
It's only hitting the target NOW that counts, so if you were already hitting it anyway then you already qualify without changing anything.
(Call it a deserved reward for already having a lower peak consumption?)

I myself only started in October, but I had switched to half-hour metering and had been monitoring my usage during September without changing anything usage wise, just to get a baseline of what I was already using.
I found that I was already hitting less than 10% most days but got up to 20% some days, so would probably have already qualified for 13.5% over the whole month.
It hasn't taken me much at all to get those 20% days down below target, although see the next paragraph.

I have been experimenting, that's just my nature, and for the first week of October was regularly hitting 4%-6% each day.
So some of the measure that I was taking at first weren't really needed, and I find that I can boil the occasional kettle or cook the occasional meal between 4-7, so getting up to around 20% for the odd day and still meeting the 13.5% target overall.

For example:
Last Friday I deliberately cooked fish and chips in the Air Fryer at 6:00 PM, microwaved some peas, and boiled a kettle for a cup of tea to have with them - just to see what effect that would have - and it was 20.31% that day.
But even with that 20.31% result it averages out, and currently I'm at 7.28% for October which is almost over.

PS. The 1/2 month email from OVO was 0.5% different to my own figure, that's because I'm only calculating to the 2 decimals on the website account whereas they calculate to 3 decimals.

From what I've been reading on the forum it is those who cook with gas who are going to struggle to meet the target, and probably they won't be able to if they don't already.
Cooking with electricity between 4-7 is the obvious high usage to move, and if you cook with gas you can't do that.

If you do cook with gas then about the only thing you can try (other than not boiling an electric kettle between 4-7), is to increase your non-peak weekday electricity use, probably by moving washing/ironing, hoovering, etc. from weekends to weekdays.
Whilst that's not strictly what Power Move is trying to achieve, it is within the rules and calculation as they are and might get you to the 13.5% target.

Good thinking @Nukecad …keep up the experimentation, it’s obviously paying off!

Excellent comments. I have also switched my cooking habits and now eat dinner around right 8pm instead of 7pm. I have also discovered that when my gas central heating boiler is pumping water around the house every 15 minutes or so, electric consumption increases dramatically according to my Smart Meter Monitor and have found that turning the thermostat down a few degrees decreases the pumping cycle to around every 30 minutes.

Some really good stuff on this forum!

Sadly, having shocked your system by moving dinner from 7 to 8 PM, next week you’ll have to shock it again when the clocks change. The 4-7 PM timings don’t change, so instead of starting 3 hours after midday, it will then start 4 hours after midday. Your stomach won’t know that, of course, and it may take it a few days to acclimatize, so to speak.

This is when the system really comes into its own: the peak period for electricity consumption currently stretches from around 5 - 8 PM BST, which will become 4 - 7 PM GMT. Power Move and similar schemes run by other suppliers will begin to make a real difference; the amount of fossil fuel that has to be burnt to meet peak demand will decrease, and the likelihood of scheduled power cuts recedes. 

For those who still like/want to eat a full meal between 4-7.

One thing that I have been doing is cooking off-peak and then putting it aside to microwave later.
4 or 5 minutes microwave use between 4-7 is not going to alter your percentage that much, (unless you have a 3KW industrial microwave, LOL), so unless you are very borderline on meeting the target you should be OK doing that.

Things like rice and pasta with sauces are ideal for doing that, cooked mashed potato (homemashed not instant) reheats very well too, as does any already cooked veg.
The trick is to use your off-peak power to cook it, and then only use a small amount of peak power to reheat it through.

You can also batch cook things like stews and broths and freeze in portions to microwave later. (pre-cooked rice, pasta, mash, veg, etc. can also be frozen).
Remember to take them out early to fully defrost on the worktop, or move from freezer to fridge in the morning to defrost there, or defrost them in the microwave before 4PM to heat through later - DON’T use the microwave to defrost them, or reheat them from frozen, between 4-7 - that's just using peak power again.

TBH I don't think that the change from BST to GMT will make much of a difference, other than to the amount of daylight so you'll want your lights on longer. And if you have low wattage LED light bulbs then they use very little power.
But the daylight declines rapidly both morning and evening as winter comes anyway, whether you move the clock or not you still have exactly the same amount of daylight hours.

PS. I don't believe that turning the boiler thermostat down will help towards the Power MOVE target at all.
Although it will decrease your overall usage it will decrease it whenever in the day the boiler timer is on, it won't MOVE it out of peak hours.
(Boiler pumps usually only use about 75-100 Watts anyway).
If you do want to change it to help meet the Power Move target then you are better setting the boiler timer so that it's off for 1, 2, or all 3 of the peak hours.
I'd suggest you start by setting it off 4-5, on 5-6, off 6-7, and see if you are still warm enough with that, then adjust the on/off peak times as necessary to be comfortable.
(Even before joining Power Move I had mine set to off from 2PM-6PM, I’ve had no reason to change that up to 7PM).

My earlier posts echo your cooking tips and have a freezer full of hearty but healthy batch cooked meals. I'm a single pensioner and have been doing this for years not only saving money by cooking in bulk but buying family packs of groceries. My observations about boiler pumps is a tip about savings in general however small. Another tip I have you've probably heard of - it's about Granny and eggs!

Really really brilliant tips here! 

I recently invested in an air fryer- will be interesting to see how this impacts my energy consumption. We have a tremendously inefficient old oven so I’m hoping a lot!

I wonder if it’s more energy efficient to re-heat dinner in a microwave or air fryer?

It will depend on the model but from what we’ve seen over the last 6 months or so, the air fryer uses less power but does need pre-heating