OVO Energy is making it harder for millions of customers to get up to £144 discounts on bills for using less electricity at peak times.
Until February customers could claim a maximum of £12 discount on their monthly energy bill if they hit a target of using 8% or less of their total electricity consumption during 4pm to 7pm on weekdays.
This was part of the supplier’s popular Power Move scheme, where discounts of £3, £6 or £12 were given.
But now customers hitting the target of using 15% or less than of their total electricity consumption will be entered into a prize draw instead.
Households can still get £10 off bills if they use 2% less of their energy during peaktimes but after May the perk is being completely scrapped.
Ovo has reduced its peak hours from 4pm to 7pm to 5pm to 7pm, in a bid to make the targets easier to reach.
Around a third of Ovo customers who earned a credit go the full £12.
But customers are unhappy about the change. The switch from cold hard cash to prize draw entries has come as a blow to loyal Ovo customers, many of whom have taken to Ovo’s customer forum to complain about the changes.
[authenticated-scripts src=”%3Cscript%20class%3D%22palin-poll%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fpollingwidgets%2Fv3%2Fwidget.js%3Fquestion_id%3D106565%26game%3Dpolling%22%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E” type=”embedded” width=”100″ /]One user, named GrumpyTucker, wrote: “Not a good change. Looking at the scale, I’d probably get 3-5 entries. Probably just not going to bother even trying to reduce usage if there’s no benefit like money off the bill, and the number of entries will be so low anyway.”
Another user, Carbon Cutter, said: “I did my sums and it’s clear that I won’t bothering with the new version of PowerMove. I can regularly hit 5-6% use 4-7 pm, but I’m not going to get as far down as 2% use 5-7 pm, so I won’t get the £10 ‘energy bill credit’, I’ll just be in the draw.
“But you only have to do a few simple calculations to show that it’s just not worth bothering. Anyone who owns Premium Bonds and understands those prize draws will also understand how the odds work.”
Consumer rights expert Martyn James said: “Energy firms like Ovo are going to have to work a lot harder to encourage people to reduce peak time energy use, given that the already rather stingy price cuts have been replaced by an even meaner prize draw.
“The problem with removing incentives like this is people simply give up on energy efficiency, which is a big mistake, given the current levels in volatility in the market.”
How does the prize draw work?
Each month, customers who are signed up to Power Move and use 15% or less of their total electricity during peak times will earn entries into that month’s prize draw.
The number of prize draw entries each customer will get depends on how much electricity they use during peak times. The lower your home’s peak time electricity use, the more entries you’ll earn.
For example, 1% usage during peak hours equals 15 entries – but this is an almost impossible target.
Someone with 12% would get four entries and 13% would get three entries.
Prizes include a year’s free energy up to a maximum of £2,000. If you win, the money will be added to your account as a credit each month, rather than given as a lump sum. So if you leave Ovo within the year, you won’t get 100% of the money.
For February – with the draw taking place in March – there are also 125 prizes of £50 and 17,900 of £2.
Power Move is only available to Ovo customers with a non-prepay smart meter for electricity that provides half-hourly readings.
An OVO spokesperson said: “Power Move was created to reward our customers for using energy at times when there’s more renewable energy powering the grid.
“After listening to our customers, we’re making changes to Power Move and rolling it out to more customers than ever before. This further supports our mission to make energy better for our people and the planet.”
We also revealed this week the boiler button that could help households save money.
Experts have also named the day that households should switch off their heating to help save money.
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