Octopus Energy’s cloud-native platform Kraken Technologies will be utilised in Belgium to control heat pumps and other energy technologies to reduce household bills amid the energy crisis.
Energy solution provider Noven will use the cloud platform to control heat pumps, solar panels, EV chargers and smart meters in order to automatically reduce energy consumption and ensure customers based in Belgium avoid costly peak charges.
This is expected to be a first in the country that domestic flexibility has been used this way, Octopus said.
“We feel very privileged to have been selected to help Belgium create a smarter ecosystem for energy users. This next partnership with Noven will allow the same benefits of cheaper, greener energy to be passed on to households,” said Devrim Celal, CEO of Kraken.
“By remotely managing a plethora of home devices, we are able to save customers money without impacting their day to day lives. Boundary pushing technology projects like this will be the best way to reduce our reliance on dirty gas and move the whole continent away from exposure to high wholesale energy prices to bring costs down through the whole system.”
Kraken is used by a range of companies based in the UK. For instance, in May 2021, E.ON completed the migration of two million former npower customers to its Kraken powered E.ON Next customer service platform.
The migration had been announced as part of a partnership between E.ON and the tech arm of the Octopus Group, Kraken Technologies, in March 2020.
EDF made a similar move towards the end of 2021 having announced that it would move five million customers onto Octopus Energy’s Kraken platform from the summer of 2023.
The energy supplier will use Kraken to manage its customer accounts in the UK and further develop its home heat and EV offering. The platform will enable new ways of working across customer operations and allow EDF to adapt to future energy requirements as part of the energy transition.
This is similar to how Hoven will utilise the Kraken platform in Belgium.
“It’s through boundary pushing technology projects like these that we will be able to reduce our reliance on dirty gas. It will not only allow Europe to move away from high wholesale energy prices, but it will also help promote greener energy solutions,” said Pieter-Jan Degroote, project manager at Noven.
Belgian households will soon have a capacity threshold set, which if surpassed, means consumers will begin to be charged at a higher rate, Octopus said. It is hoped the measures introduced by the Kraken system can help mitigate the severity of this.
Octopus Energy recently reduced its standing charge for those on its variable tariff by 4% to provide additional support for consumers amid the energy crisis in the UK.