The EQUINOX heat pump trial 24/25: your questions answered

The EQUINOX project is run in partnership with National Grid (Electricity Distribution) and rewards participants for helping us research cheaper, greener heating for all.

The project is mainly aimed at people with heat pumps: a form of low-carbon heating technology that can replace the traditional boilers as a greener way to heat homes.

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).

As part of the EQUINOX project, we're investigating how people can help us create a greener, more efficient energy system by heating their homes flexibly and at 'off-peak' times.

Doing this means we could avoid costly infrastructure updates (that our energy bills help to pay for) and help the UK cut carbon emissions by rolling out heat pumps on a massive scale.

This year we’re running a few different ‘active’ trials under the EQUINOX name, plus a Control Group to help us get the best results possible.

To join EQUINOX with Octopus Energy you must:

1. Have a heat pump
2. Be an Octopus customer
3. Have a smart meter
4. Live in the area served by distribution network operators National Grid (Electricity Distribution) or SP Energy Networks (SPEN) (find out who your DNO is here)

Different trials have different criteria for taking part, see below:

To join Turn Up Trial you must: 

1. Be invited to take part – only some postcodes are eligible.
2. Not be part of our Control Group (you’ll know if you are)

To join Control Group you must:

1. Be invited to take part – our Control Group needs to represent all heat pump users, so we balance factors like location and tariff to make sure we get fair results.
2. Not be invited to take part in any of the other EQUINOX trials – this is to make sure we get unbiased results from the Control Group.

This year we’re streamlining EQUINOX. Some of the next active trials will focus on customers who are on tariffs that don’t change price during the day (like Flexible Octopus), and customers with tariffs that have off-peak prices overnight (like Intelligent Octopus Go).

This year we’re focusing on customers with tariffs that don’t change price during the day (like Flexible Octopus) or have off-peak prices overnight (like Intelligent Octopus Go).

That said, some of our trials like Turn Up will be open to customers on other tariffs that change price during the day (including Octopus Cosy, Intelligent Octopus Flux, Octopus Flux, Agile).

Sadly, not everyone is able to take part in EQUINOX. If you're not able to take part, it's likely because:

• There are a limited number of places in EQUINOX.
• Your electricity distributor is not National Grid or SP Energy Networks.
• You haven’t got a heat pump or had one installed by the start of the trial.
• You may not have a functioning smart meter. (If you’d like one, request a free installation today).
  

Octoplus members are welcome to sign up to EQUINOX trials and you can still enjoy all your current benefits, including Free Electricity Sessions, discounted cinema tickets and money off meals at selected restaurants.

If you’re a smart meter user and you’re not already a member of Octoplus, head to your dashboard to sign up for free and enjoy loads of great perks from collecting loyalty points.

Yes, this year you can take part in both EQUINOX and any future Saving Sessions. If there’s ever a clash, we’ll let you know which one is more beneficial to take part in.

Customers in EQUINOX are able to join and benefit from Free Electricity Sessions. If there’s ever a clash, we’ll let you know which one is more beneficial to take part in.

Yes, this year you can take part in both EQUINOX and in Power Ups Scotland if you are eligible. If there’s ever a clash, we’ll let you know which one is more beneficial to take part in.

We need a full set of data for winter so we can be confident in our results. You’ll have to exit the trial if you move home or change suppliers

This year we’re streamlining EQUINOX and focusing on customers who are on tariffs that don’t change price during the day (like Flexible Octopus) or that have off-peak prices overnight (like Intelligent Octopus Go).

You’ll have to exit any EQUINOX Trial that you’re a part of if you change to an ineligible tariff during an EQUINOX trial. If that happens, we’ll keep you on the EQUINOX mailing list so we can let you know if there are any trials you might be eligible for in the future.

We’re working with National Grid (Electricity Distribution). As one of the UK's distribution network operators (DNO), they own and operate the cables and wires that deliver electricity from pylons to homes and buildings across the Midlands, South West and South Wales.

EQUINOX is led by National Grid (Electricity Distribution), in collaboration with Octopus Energy, Sero, ScottishPower, Passiv UK, SP Energy Networks, Welsh Government, West Midlands Combined Authority, National Energy Action, and Guidehouse.

We’re sending out Octopus Home Mini’s to all EQUINOX customers with an eligible smart meter. These nifty little devices should help you keep track of your energy usage, read more about the Octopus Home Mini and what it does in our dedicated blog.

We’re running an EQUINOX mini-trial to see if heat pumps can absorb green electricity that would otherwise go to waste when there’s an excess on the grid.

There will be Heat Pump Turn Up events and General Turn Up events. They’ll all be 1-2 hours long and any electricity you use at that time will be free. We’ll credit your account for the energy you use during the event (including what you’d normally use at that time).

In September and early October there will be 4-6 Turn Up events, each 1-2 hours long. We’ll let you know the time and date in advance, but they’ll generally happen in the middle of the day when electricity demand is low but renewable energy can be plentiful (think solar).

Our Heat Pump Turn Up events will come first. During these events, we’ll ask you to shift your space heating and hot water heating to the time we’ve suggested, so you can take advantage of the free electricity periods.This will give us a good insight into heat pump flexibility and whether we can do more to harness it in homes across the UK.

Once our Heat Pump Turn Up events have finished, we’ll move on to our General Turn Up events. The energy you use in these sessions won’t be limited to heat pumps – you can shift any of your usual electricity usage to take advantage of the free power (EV charging, cooking, laundry, topping up home batteries etc!)

After each event, we’ll look at how much electricity your home used over the event window and credit your account with the equivalent cost. You’ll get your normal electricity use credited back, as well as any extra you use.

All being well, you should see the credit in your account within 14 days of the event ending. If there’s any kind of a glitch (for example, we can’t get your meter readings from your meter), we’ll credit you the average payment customers received for that event.

Bear in mind that you’re responsible for your own safety while taking part, so avoid doing anything that might put this at risk, like plugging in loads of electrical devices on a single extension cable or overwhelming your circuit breaker.

Once you’ve signed up to our Turn Up Trial by taking a short survey and agreeing to some T&Cs, all you need to do is look out for our emails letting you know when the next event is happening. There’s no need to opt-in to each event, we’ll do that automatically.

For Heat Pump Turn Up events, try to shift as much of your normal space heating and hot water heating into this period as you can. We’re especially interested in how you go about changing your heating routine, so there’s a quick survey after each event.

To work out your reward, we’ll look at what you normally use, and what your heat pump and water heating could use on top of that. We may cap your incentive pay out if it looks like you’ve also plugged in your EV.

For General Turn Up events, try to shift any of your normal electricity use to the event time. As well as heating up your hot water, you can put the laundry on, plug in your EV, top up your home battery. The choice is yours.

EQUINOX is about informing long-term solutions for smoothing out local grid demand, so please try to stick to things you’d usually do. For example, if it’s rare that you’d put on three or four loads of washing in a row, maybe just do the one.

Bear in mind that you’re responsible for your own safety while taking part so avoid doing anything that might put that at risk, like plugging in loads of electrical devices on a single extension cable or overwhelming your circuit breaker.

When the sun is shining, and the wind is blowing, there’s often an abundance of green electricity on the grid – especially in summer when most people are out enjoying the weather, but also at any bright and breezy time of year.

With heat pumps, we want to find out if more people can be encouraged to use them at off-peak times (usually during the day) when there is more green electricity in the system. This increase in demand at less popular times would help soak up some surplus electricity on the grid and take pressure off at certain times of the day.

The success of EQUINOX is about how it informs long-term solutions for smoothing out grid demand. For our Turn Up trial to be successful, we’d really appreciate it if you could stick to your usual activity as best possible. So, if you’d typically do one load of washing in a day, maybe don’t do five!

This is a mini-trial, so we’re only running for 4 weeks from 23rd September to 20th October. If things go well, we might even finish a week early.

Before a Turn Up event, we’ll send you an email with the details about what time it is and whether it’s a Heat Pump Turn Up event (where we’ll just ask you to shift your heat pump use) or a General Turn Up event (where we’ll ask you to move more of your household energy use). This will be 1-2 days before the event happens.

Yes! Our incentive structure means that you can benefit from Turn Up events even if you’re on a time-of-use tariff that gives you cheaper energy in the middle of the day.

If you’re an Agile customer, it's best to see what energy prices are doing at the time of the event to decide whether it’s worth taking part. If it’s a negative price period, your power is already better than free, so you’ll get billed your power at negative prices. However, if the prices are above zero, you can still benefit from free power.

Yes! We’re running this project alongside Octoplus Free Electricity. If there’s any overlap between the two, we’ll move the EQUINOX event to make sure that you can benefit from both, without compromising data collection for EQUINOX.

You’re welcome to join in! Our Turn Up trials measure your energy import, not your export. If you’re typically running off your solar or battery power at the time of the Turn Up event, you could switch to running off the grid to take advantage of the Turn Up incentive.

You can also take advantage of our General Turn Up events by filling up your battery to make the most of the free power.

In our post-event surveys, please let us know how you’ve shifted your solar or battery storage so we can account for these changes in our results.

You can leave our Turn Up trial at any time by emailing us at hello@octopus.energy. Leaving the trial doesn’t mean you also have to leave EQUINOX too. Just let us know if you’d still like to hear about future free trials you might be eligible for.

The EQUINOX project is helping us research different ways that heat pumps can deliver cheaper, green heating for all. But in order for the trials to be successful, we need a good benchmark of how people use their heat pumps across the UK, so we can compare results.

That’s where the Control Group comes in. We’ll be inviting a bunch of dedicated heat pump users to fill in some surveys and share insights with us about how they use their amazing heating tech, without actively taking part in the trials.

The Control Group will run throughout the winter (you’ll be asked to fill in 4-5 surveys max during that time) and you can still take part in any other Octopus programmes.

We’ve randomly selected customers to invite to the Control Group from a wider group of customers who we think might be eligible for EQUINOX. Unfortunately, we’re not able to change your random assignment between Control Group and active trial groups because that could bias the results we see in EQUINOX overall.

Our Control Group and active trial groups are all super valuable to this research and we’ve designed the incentives to make sure you’re not losing out from being selected for one or the other.

As well as the sign-up survey, we’ll reach out and ask you to complete the odd survey over winter. Other than that, you can sit back and relax, knowing that you’re contributing to research that could make green heating even greener and cheaper for everyone.

To recognise the value of your participation in the Control Group, we’ll pay you £10 for completing the start of winter survey on time and another £10 for completing the end of winter survey on time. That’s £20 in total if you participate in the Control Group for the whole winter – with the added pride of knowing you’re helping us do a good thing for the planet.

Our Control Group will run for the whole EQUINOX period, from 19th September 2024 to 17th September 2025. If we finish early, we’ll let you know.

We’ll email you to let you know when a paid survey is coming and you’ll receive a second email with your personalised link to the survey. If you don’t finish it all in one go, you can save it and come back to it later. All of the surveys are usually open for one week, but we’ll let you know the deadline when we send you the survey.

Sometimes we’ll send shorter surveys if we need a little more information to help us understand what we’re seeing in the trials data. These will be emailed to you and won’t be paid, so they won’t have a deadline.

Yes! We need customers with a range of homes, heat pumps and tariffs to take part in our Control Group. If you change tariff while you’re in the Control Group, it won’t affect your participation.

Yes! Participating in the Control Group doesn’t affect your eligibility for other Octopus programmes or tariffs.

Once you’ve been invited to the Control Group, we can’t invite you to take part in any other EQUINOX trials. This is to make sure that we get unbiased results from EQUINOX overall.

Once you’ve been invited to an active EQUINOX trial like Turn Up, we can’t move you to take part in the Control Group. This is to make sure we get unbiased results from EQUINOX overall.

You can leave Control Group at any time by emailing us at hello@octopus.energy and asking to be taken out of Control Group. We’ll aim to remove you from the group as soon as possible, but sometimes it can take up to 14 days.