Octopus Energy customers provided 108MW of grid flexibility during its first Saving Sessions period, according to the company.
Between 5-6pm on 15 November, 200,000 households reduced their electricity use, with the average household lowering its demand by over half (59%).
As such, collectively they provided 108MW of flexibility, more than half of the 200MW flexibility requirement National Grid called for during the period.
Bill payers received over £1 for the one hour’s shift on average, with the top 5% of participants earning an average of £4.27, paid in the form of ‘Octopoints’.
“Giving consumers the chance to grab a bargain is a win-win-win: cleaning up the grid, cutting costs and delivering greater energy security,” said Alex Schoch, head of Flexibility at Octopus Energy Group.
“Just like the yellow label products priced to clear in a supermarket, it doesn’t need everyone to take part, but those who do get cheaper energy for themselves and drive down waste and reduce costs for everyone else too.
“Octopus are proud to have pioneered this. Our huge investment in technology and customer relationships made this possible and we expect to see other companies follow suit.”
The Saving Session scheme has been enabled by the introduction of National Grid ESO’s Demand Flexibility Service. This was developed partly with Octopus, which along with other suppliers ran trials of demand side flexibility earlier in the year.
Since it was officially launched, over 400,000 of Octopus Energy’s 1.4 million electric smart meter customers have signed up to the Saving Session’s programme, which is still accepting new sign ups.
Given the success of this initial session, if the program was scaled to all electric smart meter customers with all supplier in Great Britain, it could create over 1GW of flexible energy load, the company said.
Along with Octopus’ Saving Sessions, a number of other utilities have launched demand flexibility programs, including OVO’s Power Move and Utilita Energy’s Power Payback.