Ovo Power Move

kayaitch

I was invited to sign up for Power Move, which means using less electricity from 4pm to 7pm.  They told me that I did not meet my target in September although I was away for 2 weeks, and halfway through October I am told that I am not likely to meet the target this month either.   I never use the dishwasher or washing machine in the afternoon or evening, always in the morning when I'm going to work.  The only thing I have on in the evening is the TV.  So this offer of credit sounds like something impossible.  Has anyone else had this experience with Ovo?

QrizB

Have OVO told you what your targets are, and how they are measured?

What were your results for September?

ArbitraryRandom

kayaitch said:

I was invited to sign up for Power Move, which means using less electricity from 4pm to 7pm.  They told me that I did not meet my target in September although I was away for 2 weeks, and halfway through October I am told that I am not likely to meet the target this month either.   I never use the dishwasher or washing machine in the afternoon or evening, always in the morning when I'm going to work.  The only thing I have on in the evening is the TV.  So this offer of credit sounds like something impossible.  Has anyone else had this experience with Ovo?

The power move scheme requires you to use less than a set percentage of your total electricity (I think it varies from between 10-20%) during the time period - and it doesn't count your weekend use. 

So rather than using no energy during the time period, you actually need to use ~80-90% of your energy between 7pm - 4pm... if you are using an eco-mode on your dishwasher and still cooking at 5pm, or when you were away for 2 weeks with your house using just the same baseline energy 24/7, then your use outside of the power move hours might not have been high enough for you to qualify. 

I'm not on the scheme myself, but I know someone who is (they had a goal of 10% for the first 3 months and I believe it went up to an odd number like 13% recently) and they have managed to hit the target each month as far as I'm aware - mostly from what I can tell by turning things off at the wall at 4pm and relying on devices that run on batteries until 7, so their base load usage for the time period is only the router and fridge/freezer. 

ArbitraryRandom

QrizB said:

Have OVO told you what your targets are, and how they are measured?

This is the general info, but I don't know if customers have access to more details when logged in: https://www.ovoenergy.com/power-move-faqs

silvercar

I joined the ovo power move for today (5-6.30pm). My target is to use only 0.9kwH in that time! My reward is £1 for every kwH I shift below my target. Given my target is so low, I can only possibly shift 0.9 kwH, so my reward would max at 90p. In practical terms, my background usage is around 0.3kwH, so for 1.5 hours I am unlikely to shift more than 0.4kwH.

Anyone advise how the target is set? How could I raise it?

(Last year I used to plug in the electric car in the 1-4 hours beforehand to raise the expected use; I know this no longer works but 0.9kwH seems pitifully low for a heavy user).