Power Move- What is the point?

I feel the same we are pensioners in a 3 bed house . All that we have on during the period is tv , heating thermostat turned down  and one light when needed. Cook tea at this time usually using air fryer . Before 4is to early to eat and after 7 too late . We have smart plugs to make sure appliances not in use are all switched off when not in use . Even turned off oven so we have to reset clock anytime we want to use it . I think these targets are set with families in mind rather than for smaller households 

Once again, I think lots of people have basic misunderstanding of how this works.

It's not about saving power but shifting when you use it to outside the hours of 1600 to 1900.

So shift your use of high energy stuff to outside those times or you will not get a credit.

I do achieved it but I live alone. I was tv on my ipad during 4 -7 I put my heating on before then turn it off just before 4. I have a few candles a light and enjoy a glass of wine instead of making a hot drink and eat at 7 . All very cosy and seem to achieve the target every month. Date are getting longer so it will be easier still.

I feel like I’ve said this before…

The mindset of “Before 4pm is too early and after 7pm is too late” is EXACTLY why the 4pm to 7pm peak period exists - and it’s also EXACTLY OVO Power Move exists in the first place.

If you want to play the game and win, you must be willing to shift your usage patterns outside of those times.

Oh, and turning off the oven at the wall when it’s just powering the clock will save you maybe 1Wh at best, which is nowhere near enough to realistically have any impact. You’ve gotta shift the heavy usage, not the light stuff!

Exactly this.

It is not about lowering usage, it is about *when* you use it. Putting a heavy-hitting appliance on between 4 & 7, you are not going to make it.

I think pensioners are in a better position to achieve this. My kids come home from school around four, and as a consequence, everything goes “on” at that time.

However, all the big consumers of energy are used outside of 4 until 7. The cooker, the dishwasher, the drier and the kettle (a flask is filled before 4 for any hot drinks in the peak period).  All clothes washing, with the exception of emergencies, is done on a weekday, “off peak”.

I don't know how much difference it makes, but we use USB battery packs to recharge devices (phones, consoles, etc.) during the peak period, and then recharge those packs “off peak”.

The whole cooking thing, I often see here people ‘complaining’ that 7pm is too late. Is it that much of a hardship to delay it by 90 minutes or so? Maybe have something cooked earlier in the day and have a ‘cold’ tea if it is too much to bear.

I have found my smart meter display to be quite handy for spotting unusual activity. Normal, daytime, background usage is around 10p an hour in my house (13 cctv cameras, network servers, etc.

One day consumption was running unusually high by a few pence and I then found I had left all the lights on in the garage (4 x 5ft tubes).

The other quick way of identifying things that use a lot of power is to look for things that give out heat and are on for a long time. Eg my 55" TV, my desktop PC with 2 x 27" screens, left on most of the day. The cooker uses a lot, but it's typically only on for half an hour and the thermostat turns it off once it gets to temperature.

Surely the best way would be to make it cheaper during the off peak times 

Have to agree with @TonyC , @Blastoise186 etc. Don't understand users complaining that before 4 or after 7 is too early or late to eat. Why? Do they have complex medical dietary needs? My guess is no and it's simply a habit which they're not prepared to change.

Too many expect something for nothing. So tough!

By the way, achieved £15 target again in Feb, actually lowering my peak time percentage to under 5%. Not by moving any additional energy, simply using less as the days get longer. A couple of extra hours between 4 and 7 each day on the beach with my dogs, or in the garden with no tele, hi-fi or lights on soon adds up. And as a pensioner with diabetes and heart disease, my health has improved exponentially. My dogs also think it's Christmas every day! 

Put the effort in or stop whingeing!

Thats what Time of Use tariffs do. OVO doesn't want to go that far right now 

As a matter of interest what time do you eat? All fine if you’re home all day, but what about those of us who work. Also if everyone shifts their heavy usage, will that eventually lead to us then overloading the system thus having to change to another 3 hour slot. Perhaps have a rota system, change main meal times so they’re different every week. Main meal at breakfast one week, second week main meal at lunchtime, third week main meal in the evening. Hope our digestive systems can deal with it. I know mine couldn’t when I worked shifts for 30 years. Eating a main meal in the middle of the night on a weeks night shift, 8pm when I was on a weeks back shift and 6pm when I was on early shift. Thankfully I retire in September where I’ll be spending three months in warmer climes. 

Have a cooked breakfast and eat salad in the evening or cook earlier and keep it in a thermos.

Like many have said its NOTHING TO DO WITH REDUCING Usage, it's aimed at high usage users moving to outside peak times, that's the aim of power move. If you are a low usage house you will struggle and you'll struggle because it's NOT aimed at that type of user. 

We always meet the target, last month was around 8% peak time. We have an EV and its charged using ovo anytime ALWAYS out side of peak hours and it's our biggest user of electric in an all electric household everything else pales in to insignificance compared to the car. Last week the car used 66kwh and that was a low week, the next biggest demand was laundry at 24kwh. We try and avoid cooking between 4-7 and laundry is never done at peak times but for us the main thing is the EV.

I cannot understand why people post the same issue time after time.

“I have been away so have not used anything.”

“I sit in the cold and the dark.”

“I am a low user. What more do they want me to do?”

As @Blastoise186 keeps saying: The clue is in the name OVO Power Move, NOT OVO Power Reduce.

1: Read the T&Cs.

2: Read the FAQs.

3: Read other posts where this has been explained in great detail.

If you still have a genuine problem or query, go ahead and post. We will be happy to help.

For years we couldn't eat until 7.30pm because my husband was never home from work earlier.  When we retired I enjoyed eating at an earlier time but now we've joined power move we have adjusted again and eat after 7pm or often at 3.30 because we can now please ourselves. I've never eaten normal meals at conventional times so it's easy for me to adapt.  I too have been a shift worker for 40 years and there's nothing I enjoy more than curry in the morning ... who cares if its odd or not normal 

“…there's nothing I enjoy more than curry in the morning ... who cares if its odd or not normal”. Or indeed cold, as I well remember from when I were but a carefree callow youff…

Or indeed cold pizza! 🍕 😆

Why cold though,

Make a curry or beef or chicken stew, or anything similar before 4pm and put it in a thermos.

If you have a second thermos then you can actually cook pasta, rice, barley, or other grains in it, just add boiling water and leave for an hour or two with an occasional shake (google ‘thermos cooking’).

Serve them up whenever you like.

If you don't fancy the thermos cooked pasta/grains then oven chips only take 10-12 mins in an air fryer. Or slice potatoes about 3 mm or 4mm thick, put in a bowl and cover with boiling water (oops kettle use there) and microwave for 10 mins

That short use of the air fryer/microwave should be OK and not affect your percentage much.

I live alone and yesterday I did liver and onions (batch cooked earlier and the rest frozen) in one pyrex bowl, plate on top, sliced raw spuds and frozen mixed veg in a second bowl on top with boiling water - 12 mins in the microwave and my tea was ready at 6:15 while still staying under percentage because the main cooking (of the liver) was done earlier.

“ why cold” … Because often cold curry tastes so much better than hot … especially for breakfast!

We joined the power move scheme in the winter and did the best we could by avoiding as much electricity consumption during the peak hours. We are low consumers generally. Typical electric consumption is around 6kWh per day during the heating season. We achieved no rewards at all because there wasn’t much more we could have done. Background use that we can’t shut down pushed us outside the limits.

In May we shut down the oil boiler and activated the immersion heater. At this point of the year our electric consumption more or less doubles. The immersion timer is set for two 1 ½ hour periods a day. One at night, one mid afternoon. Of course, that changes the arithmetic and in May we achieved a reward under Power Move. This is daft. We get a reward for doubling our electric consumption.

@Middlestreet You could also consider that the reduction in the use of fossil fuel is also an unintended consequence although one that is beneficial in terms of less CO2 being produced.

But I totally agree with you that light users have a much harder time meeting the target compared heavy users like me with an EV.

Peter

Sympathize completely with you. Everyone's household is different. Joined the scheme last year for around nine months and hit target every month but reward wasn't really worth the effort. I'm a WW2 child and the scheme reminds me of the bad old days of rationing in the 50's. For God's sake it's 2024 and we're still being asked to ration energy? 80th anniversary of D Day today and 80 years of incompetent governments who still are incapable of ensuring our energy security. The impending General Election won't make any difference. Name an MP that is part of the Power Move scheme? £90 grand a year plus expenses, they can afford their own generators!

One of the unintended consequences of Power Move seems to be that the easiest way to make the target percentage is to actually increase your overall consumption.  I am not sure how it affects my CO2 production but I always leave my oil boiler heating my hot water in the summer as it seems to be cheaper then immersion - uses very little oil.

Not unintended at all. You never actually thought that an energy company was going to give away shareholders profits did you? Guaranteed that OVO is making more from the National Grid out of this scheme than they are giving back to customers. Beware, with the latest lowering of the energy price cap there will be more of these trick schemes offered. Don't fall for them.

Ian, I would hardly call this a trick scheme . If you do not wish to participate don’t. If you don’t wish to shift usage, don’t. If you’re able to shift and you wish to participate great. OVO will make a percentage no doubt, but so will the consumer if you’re able to shift.

These schemes are not really aimed at the ultra low users as you are a low user, this can feel unfair but maybe change your perspective and be ‘happy’ that you don't need to shift power to try and scrimp and save a few pence or pounds?

Ian, this is nothing at all like rationing, and it’s verging on offence even suggesting it, there are no rolling blackouts, no planned power cuts, no shortage of power.

The national grid has made this abundantly clear the is power. It is appropriate and smart to use you resources effectively, this is what this helps to do. Small changes equal large differences collectively and could mean not needing to look power up a gas turbine, they same way you can be payed to use more electricity when there is excessive, rather than curtailing production.

MPs I’m sure can afford it, but throughout life there is and will always be the haves and have nots, unfortunately, history shows us this, this is alway irrelevant to the scheme and sounds more like greens eyed envy.

Grid balancing and payments to use or not use have as far as i remember always be in place (commercially), the difference now is the public is getting to benefit for the payment mechanisms that was once the limited to heavy industry for example, ie smelting.