Power Move Winter Challenge Update

Thanks for the update. I might also be delayed in paying my bill! (Joke!).

All the best.

Have people received challenge update yet as we have heard nothing.

We joined in November and heard nothing since joining. When looking at acount and power move it says opted in

I got an email yesterday saying that I had met the January target, (the £15 credit is already showing on my current billing period).

Do they have your correct email address? Are you getting other emails from OVO.

Plus have you checked your email spam folder? Such messages can sometimes trigger email automatic spam filters.

Everything correct email address and checked online I am on power move but still not had any progress report. Tried chat but that just ended up with a meter helpline number before there was a problem with chat site and was cut off. Sent email but had no reply, not very good from OVO.

Hey @grainfoot,

Sorry to hear you’ve not had your progress email.

Please private message me with your name and email address and I’ll forward them on to the team. 

We received an email today to join the Winter Challenge which we've done although does seem rather pointless as it's the 1st of March so we only have a few weeks left to benefit!

We didn't make February's target. However, we use Charge Anytime for our electric cars, and I notice that at weekends the Smart Charger sometimes turns on during the 4 to 7pm slot. This dominates usage - probably for the month when averaged out. So my question - does the accounting for Power Move disregard Charge Anytime usage? 

I'll answer my own question, as a forum search came up with the answer. The Power Move scheme only applies during Mon - Fri and not at weekends. Presumably my Smart Charger know this as well and is happy to charge the car at the weekend during what would be a peak time in the week. 

Hi , I have hit the last 3 targets under 11.5%. I have involved my daughter who lives with me and her 11 month old son. We have an agreement not to cook between 4-7 if possible,  as the oven would be a big burner of juice. I cook between 6.45 and 7.30 so 66 %of the power is after the deadline. Cut the lights as much as possible. Not always easy with the baby and bath time. But if everyone buys in, it's possible. Using led lighting strips is cheaper too.

I have no dishwasher, which I think could be a big burner too.

Having big burner items that you can then use outside the 4-7 timeslot actually make hitting the target easier.

I was outside of even the £3 reward in the middle of the month and then smashed on loads of extra washloads and did more oven cooked food.  The £15 reward more than paid for the extra I used.

And I’ve no problem hitting targets even though I’m a low user that uses about 80p of electricity a day.

Thank heavens yesterday was a Sunday! I rarely watch TV on my old 37" non-smart Panasonic but I watched the UK Darts Open over the weekend. It was quite a shock to see my electricity usage had doubled! My normal usage from 4 to 7pm varies between 0.21 and 0.32 kwh. Yesterday it was 0.64 from a, for me on a Sunday, huge total for the day of 4.38. Ouch! (But I did enjoy watching the darts 🙂.) Other than the TV, nothing out of the norm was in use. The only time my daily usage goes above 3kwh is on laundry or bread baking days! I had no idea that the TV uses so much energy. Lesson learned! 

BTW.......my February average was 8.64% so well under target. 

I’ve got a 37 inch Toshiba non-LED compact fluorescent that was given me which I found out from the smart plugs that were sent me uses 131watts when it’s on and a horrendous 25 watts in standby.  That’s near £70 a year if left in standby!

I use a  remote thingy to turn off the TV and peripherals at the socket. It's off except for the odd occasion I want to watch something that I can't get with subtitles on my tablet. Does it still use Energy even when it's off? It's never on standby! 

Probably not, but the remote thingy does 🙂

I plugged a Tapo plug into another Tapo plug with the relay connected so that devices would be on.  It registered less than 1 watt which is in a way not useful.  I left it running like that for ages and there were on/off cycles of energy usage showing that it was basically using 0.5 watts which isn’t that bad.

Some really helpful insight @Tron Burgundy, are you finding you’re successful in most challenges? 

@Emmanuelle_OVO For the first month of the Power Move challenge I didn’t get it because I think like a lot of people on here who complain that they fail it, basically I didn’t fully understand it’s not about reducing total use it’s about doing stuff outside the peak zone.  As soon as I twigged that then doing cooking and washing outside peak hours weekdays made it loads easier.  Sometimes even waiting for a washload ready on Sunday would be done Monday.

My girlfriend has asked sometimes if we can pack it in for a month but because she watches the awful big telly mentioned above in the evenings it really hasn’t been that much of a problem.

With a pointer from someone on here I can now grab half hourly readings from OVO’s own servers so I’ll write some javascript that should let people see their current and previous month’s peak time percentage.  It won’t be pretty but it’ll mean nobody has to put anything into a spreadsheet any more.  It won’t deal with bank holidays, though.  I can’t be faffed going that far.

Be careful with those tapo plugs, the relays can get stuck, which means even though they click to turn off, they actually do not, you can tell whether it’s off or not with how much power draw it has.

Yeah, I’ve got some Lime power saving plugs and the relays stick sometimes.  I have to smash them against the floor so they work for a few more months.

It’s now May, we have been signed up to power move since November and we have heard  nothing from OVO as to why we are not getting any progress reports or anything. They can see we have been signed up since November but we just get passed from one team to another every time we ring. 
Not very good from OVO 

Hi @grainfoot 

If you’re successfully on the Power Move challenges, you should have been receiving challenge and reward emails. 

• Power Move - spring challenge News

Do you know if the smart meter is communicating with us on a half-hourly reading schedule? 

My other question would be, have you received any reward credit on any of your bills? 

I’d suggest contacting the Support Team about the issue too as we don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum and they’ll be able to check the status of Power Move on the account.

Let us know how you get on.

Still not received any power move communication. We are on power move bills say that. No updates or progress reports. Phoned customer service and not helpful at all nothing resolved. November till now and they can’t resolve problem.

Hi @grainfoot,

I’m really sorry for the issues you’ve been experiencing, that’s definitely not the experience we want for our customers.

I’m going to have our Forum_Support team reach out to you so they can help you further with this. Look out for a private message here soon: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview