Power Move Flex results emails states my smart meter failed to send readings?

Sorry, I can't help as I don't know why this happens but just want to let you know, you're not alone. My meter apparently failed to send readings at various times during the winter Power Move. Like you, I checked my app and looked at the days that my meter didn't send some readings. I couldn't see any missing readings for any of the half hours. I queried it and OVO said that my Internet might have been down during the missing times. So, I'm guessing that's what they'll tell you. Quite annoying as I lost out on £30 (2 months of £15 credit).

I agree with you a total wast of time 

It isn’t a waste of time unless you can’t - or won’t - play the game properly as intended.

Increasing your usage just to hit targets is NOT the goal here and is technically cheating since you’re not doing what the whole point of Power Move is. Gas also doesn’t count either - this is about Electricity only. Likewise, getting any discount at all is better than nothing - it’s £3 less than what you’d have paid otherwise.

If you are deliberately inflating your usage, then it’s pretty obvious that you’re gobbling up that reward with the extra charges - so maybe don’t do that? :)

The DROP in usage is only required during the specified Peak Hours, currently 6pm to 9pm Weekdays at the time I posted this (it changes throughout the year!) with all other times being Off-Peak. To win, do not just raise or drop your usage - MOVE heavy loads to an Off-Peak timeslot and you’ll find it 10,000% easier to win fairly.

We have said the above advice probably a few hundred times now. If you fail to follow it, that’s your problem, not ours. Additionally, if you try to cheat the system and get stung as a result, you’re on your own there too - OVO won’t refund you for that.

With that being said, Power Move is not well suited to Extremely Low users who consume 1-2kWh of Electricity per day. If you’re in this group, you still have a chance, but you’ll just have to work harder.

I am a low user with solar panels, I have no chance of qualifying.  I don't give it a second of my time either 

That's nonsense.

The Smart Meter does not use your domestic internet to transmit the results.  It has it's own cellular-based connectivity.

What's more, as I understand it, the meter collects the results half-hourly but only transmits the figures to the supplier once-a-day in the early hours.

No, but it's what the scheme is called and is often overlooked.

It is not about using less, it is about when you use it. Avoid heavy-hitting devices at peak times, and you should be good.

I am not sure why everyone expects a handout these days, just for turning up and not being prepared to put any effort in.

Sorry l don’t know why this could be happening. my readings are okay my smart meter is alright at present. so can’t help l am afraid hopefully you will get it sorted soon.

Pretty close! In the Southern Territory (basically everything below Manchester), it is indeed Cellular based, currently running on O2/Telefonica, but will likely move to Vodafone for the 4G Comms Hubs that are coming into play. The use of the Public Internet for this purpose has been explicitly banned by NCSC as Smart Meters are considered to be Critical National Infrastructure - they MUST run on a private network that can’t be accessed externally.

For those in the Northern Territory, it’s Long-Range Radio based using Arqiva.

But you are right otherwise - the meter logs the data every 30 minutes and submits overnight at a random time to avoid blowing up the infrastructure. It does NOT submit every 30 minutes though - this is possible to do in theory, but rather wasteful of resources and wouldn’t add much benefit anyway.

^ This is exactly my point ^

One of my other volunteer roles is in the Fire Service, for which we have a minimum commitment that ALL Volunteers must meet each year in order to remain on the team. If you meet that quota (it doesn’t matter how/where/when/what you do to meet it as long as you do!), you’re good for another year and can choose to commit more if you want, but you don’t have to. Those who fail to meet it (and it’s not exactly hard to meet!) get put on notice for six months and must improve your activity levels in that time. Recover and you’re back on the team properly, albeit with additional support to help you stay on track again. If you still fail to meet the requirements after that six month notice period (making a total of 18 months to get your act together!), you get asked to resign and if you refuse, you’re forcibly booted from the team anyway. The reason being that it’s not fair on the others who put the effort in to have to carry the ones who can’t be bothered to help out. Likewise, if you don’t help out, you don’t get to take part in the rewards either. You have to be in it to win it, so to speak.

And it’s also because those who aren’t contributing are just dragging the team down anyway and since they wouldn’t be adding any value, they wouldn’t really be missed. Since they’re inactive, dropping them from the team wouldn’t hold us back - it’d allow us to focus our resources more effectively and saves money by not wasting anything on those who don’t do anything in return.

Fire Cadets are even more strict about this stuff - if a Fire Cadet goes more than three consecutive weeks without turning up and doesn’t have a valid reason for their absence, the Service will assume they’ve resigned and boot them off the program immediately without further warning.

OVO Power Move follows the same rules - you’ve gotta play the game as intended to get the prize. Those who either try to cheat or just fail to engage will, naturally, get nothing back.

Ah! Thanks for the clarification. As I am well and truly south of Manchester, it's probably why I thought it was all cellular.

Arqiva, now there's a name I've come across in my professional career.

I did really well on the first power move event I entered and gained a good amount of credit 😁 I've noticed since then that when I 'shift' a lot of energy, they "fail' to get enough readings. If I shift a bit of energy I get the credits, which are now only 5p per kwh so running around during my lunch break hoovering, doing the dishes and loading the washing machine earns me around 10p. It's pretty obvious to me that if you shift a lot of energy, they'll tell you they haven't got enough readings because they don't want to pay you what they've promised. I've given up bothering now. It's not worth disrupting your lifestyle for a few pence. You'll save more by turning down your thermostat a bit or putting less water in the kettle etc.

Are you an OVO representative?  

Power Move Flex is a different scheme from Power Move. It’s confusing for everyone when posts about one scheme are made in the forum for a different one. Power Move Flex has its own space here: Power Move Flex | The OVO Forum. You have to ask for permission to access it.

Many of the comments in this thread refer to Power Move, not Power Move Flex. There are forum articles explaining each scheme: 

Power Move Frequently Asked Questions
Want to know more about Power Move Flex?

As has been mentioned many times before, neither myself nor Firedog work for OVO. We do work closely with OVO Staff (the Forum Moderators being an easy example), but we are not OVO Staff ourselves. We are known as the Forum Volunteers because we help out here on the Forum on a regular basis.

We don’t get paid hard cash for doing it, but we do get “paid” with additional insights into what’s going on at OVO and the around the industry, which mostly just helps us to do what we do here - which is doing cool things.

It’s something we choose to do because we enjoy it - the same reason I’m a Fire Service Volunteer because I enjoy that too. After all, when else can you do “mean things” and actually get away with them? :D