The EQUINOX heat pump trial 2023/24
EQUINOX is a trial exploring ways we can make green heating cheaper and greener. In this blog, we’ll look at how EQUINOX works and what we've learnt so far. We'll be back with the 23/24 results soon!
Interested in taking part in this year's EQUINOX trial? Provide your details below and we'll contact you with further details soon.
What is the EQUINOX green heating trial?
The EQUINOX trial is for customers with heat pumps - designed to help you earn money for working with us and National Grid Electricity Distribution to research cheaper, greener heating for all.
Heat pumps are the future of green heating, they’re incredibly efficient, reliable, and only getting cheaper. Still, we can make them even easier on the climate (and on people’s wallets). We can do this by encouraging people to use them in ways that reduce the electrical load they add to the grid at ‘peak’ times - and therefore circumvent expensive infrastructure upgrades that are needed accommodate that (reducing bills for everyone).
To work out how best to do this, the crack-squad of ‘flexperts’ from Octopus’ Flexibility Team have joined forces with National Grid Electricity Distribution (a distribution network operator, responsible for pumping electricity down the wires to your homes), and a range of other specialist organisations. Together, we’re investigating customers' potential to unlock the ‘flexibility’ we need to streamline the electrification of heat. This will help bring the benefits - lower energy bills and a greener grid - to everybody.
At a glance, shifting your heating might seem inconvenient, but because of the way heat pumps work it couldn’t be easier. Where combi boilers are designed to be reactive (you say ‘heating on’ and the boiler will burn loads of dirty fossil fuels at several hundred degrees to heat your water up right then and there), heat pumps warm your water - and so your home - gently, for longer, and much, much more efficiently.
In fact, the longer and more gently your heat pump warms your house, the more efficient (and cheap) it is to do so. This means that in winter, you can start heating your home several hours before you arrive home, take a break during any 'peaks' in demand, and then continue heating your home afterwards. This is exactly what EQUINOX will encourage people to do, rewarding them for shifting electric heating to times when energy demand is lower (again, usually outside the daily 4-7pm ‘peak’).
What did we learn from Winter 2022-23? … It really works!
The first EQUINOX trial ran from December 2022 to April 2023 and explored our customers’ ability to respond to ‘signals’ to turn down their green heating in exchange for cash rewards. The trial was a great success. EQUINOX suggests, once again, that paying people to shift their energy usage in ways that makes the grid cheaper to maintain really works when it comes to green heating.
Hundreds of customers were able to reliably shift their energy usage to greener, cheaper times over the course of the trial, blowing our expectations out of the water. Check out the dip in electricity usage on this graph that shows data from a session in January, for example:
On top of that, feedback from those who took part blew us away. People were unbelievably engaged. There was an average of 82% participation across all EQUINOX events, with roughly 60% vulnerable and non-vulnerable customers taking part in every single event. What’s more, people reported that flexible heating had very little impact on their comfort. Ultimately, over 90% of customers were ‘Extremely satisfied’ to ‘moderately satisfied’ with EQUINOX, with less than 2% reporting that they were ‘dissatisfied’.
Register your interest in next year's EQUINOX trial
We suggest putting your name down quick! Following the success of last winters’ EQUINOX trial, current interest levels suggest this years’ trial is likely to be oversubscribed.
Still got questions about EQUINOX?
Head on over to our dedicated EQUINOX FAQ page!
Published on 6th September 2024 by:
Hey I'm Constantine, welcome to Octopus Energy!
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