Terms & Conditions for the EQUINOX heat pump trial as provided by Octopus Energy

General

These Terms and Conditions apply to the EQUINOX heat pump trials provided by Octopus Energy (the “Trial”). By entering the Trial, you agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions:

The Trial will be run by Octopus Energy Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with registered number 09263424 and registered office 33 Holborn, London, EC1N 2HT (“Octopus Energy”, “we”, “us”).
The Trial is run by Octopus Energy as part of a wider OFGEM Network Innovation Competition (NIC) consortium project, EQUINOX, in partnership with National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED), ScottishPower Energy Networks (SPEN), ScottishPower, PassivUK, Welsh Government, West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), Sero, National Energy Action (NEA) and Guidehouse Europe Ltd. ("Guidehouse") (“Partners”) (though to be clear, the Partners are not a party to the Terms and Conditions).
These terms and conditions, together with any specific information or rules set out in any communications relating to the Trial, are the Trial rules (“Rules”) and apply to this Trial. By entering this Trial, you are agreeing to comply with these Rules and any other applicable instructions.
Octopus Energy reserves the right to cancel or amend the Trial and/or the Rules without prior notice. We’ll make sure that we post any changes to the Rules on our website so you can see them.
In the event of any dispute regarding any aspect of the Trial, the decision of Octopus Energy shall be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
These Trial terms and conditions are separate to the terms and conditions for the supply of electricity and gas that you will have with Octopus Energy and will not affect your rights and obligations under those terms.

Service Participation
There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this Trial. Entrants must be 18 or over. Only residents that fall within the distribution network of National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) are eligible to take part in the Trial.
To be eligible for the Trial, you must:
1. Be a current electricity customer of Octopus Energy;
2. Have a working smart meter which has been sending us 80% of half-hourly readings for the last 20 days;
3. Have at least a full day’s worth of half-hourly readings;
4. Opt-into the Trial by completing the required pre-trial questions as sent by email to your Octopus Energy account email address;
5. Own and use a heat pump as the primary method of heating your home (and this heat pump must not be shared with any other residence(s));
6. Have consented to, and not remove your consent for, giving us half-hourly meter reads;
7. Participate in surveys in the timeframes requested of you, including longer periodic surveys asking about your experience in the Trial and in more frequent, brief surveys after trial events and
8. comply with these Terms & Conditions at all times.
Participation in this Trial makes you ineligible for any demand flexibility services being provided by Octopus Energy or another supplier (including but not limited to Saving Sessions).
The Trial period will start at 00:01 on Monday 30th October 2023 and will end at 23:59 on Tuesday 30th April 2024. Participation in the Trial will not entitle you to participation in further trials that may be run after this period.
There will be at least 15 turn down windows (“Events”) between Monday 30th October 2023 and Tuesday 30th April 2024. You will be invited to no more than 25 Events in the Trial. Customers will be able to decide which of the Events they are invited to that they participate in. Prior to each Event, we will attempt to send you a notification of the Event window and the available payment per kWh turn down (the “Incentive”). The Incentive is not fixed and may be different for each EQUINOX Event.
To be eligible for payment, you must opt-in to the Event before it begins, and reduce electricity import as measured by your smart meter compared to a “Baseline” during any of the half-hours of the Event window.
You will be paid the Incentive for each half-hour of the Event that you turn down. We will use our reasonable endeavours to credit your account with your Incentive within 14 business days of each Event.
We will calculate your Baseline using the BSC P376 ‘Utilising a Baseline Methodology to set Physical Notifications’ without an in-day adjustment. The Baseline is the average consumption for the same period(s) over up to 10 days of your recent smart meter history, excluding days where an Event has taken place.
In the event that we’re unable to pull your meter readings to calculate your usage from any of the Events, we’ll work it out using an average across all Event participants. EQUINOX is focusing on heat pump flexibility and asks that heat pump turndown is the only action taken for an Event. If the turndown achieved in an Event is deemed to be beyond fair usage (that obtainable via the heat pump alone) then the Incentive may be limited to an amount matching your heat pump electrical load. If turndown persistently exceeds fair usage, we reserve the right to remove you from the Trial.
If at any point throughout the Trial you are no longer eligible to participate, we reserve the right to remove you from the Trial. Similarly, if your smart meter becomes disconnected, if you no longer use your heat pump as the primary method of heating your home or if you move house, we reserve the right to remove you from the Trial.
By entering the Trial, you warrant that all information submitted by you is true, current and complete. If any information you submit is found to be fraudulent or incorrectly completed or if Octopus Energy has reasonable grounds to believe that you have breached any of the Rules, Octopus Energy reserves the right to disqualify you from the Trial.
Octopus Energy will not be liable to reimburse any expenses incurred with entering the Trial. Octopus Energy does not accept liability for any equipment malfunction that occurs during the Trial.
If at any point you wish to opt-out of the Trial, please email hello@octopusenergy.com and we will remove you.
If you exit the Trial or are removed from the Trial for any reason you will not be eligible for any further payments from the Trial.

Data Protection and Privacy
Octopus Energy’s privacy policy shall apply to any data collected in connection with the Trial and can be found on our website at http://octopus.energy/privacy.
The Trial is provided by Octopus Energy as part of an OFGEM NIC Consortium project, in collaboration with Partner companies. By entering the Trial you agree that, for the purpose of administering surveys and for analysing results of the Trial, Octopus Energy may provide your contact details (name, email, postcode), information about your residence (including but not limited to property type, generalised location, presence of other low carbon technologies or heating technologies), information about your household (including but not limited to Priority Services Register (PSR) status (yes/no), perceived cold vulnerability, EPC rating, occupancy) and half hourly electricity consumption, baseline and reduction data to Guidehouse and National Energy Action (NEA). You will be given an opportunity to opt-out of non-aggregated data sharing for this purpose. This data will be governed by the privacy policies of each Guidehouse and NEA, which can be obtained from them directly.
By entering the Trial you further agree that, for the purpose of administering the Trial, Octopus Energy will share your Meter Point Administration Number with National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED).
The results of the Trial belong to Octopus Energy and to Partners in the EQUINOX consortium. As part of the Trial, we will be required to share anonymised, aggregated data collected during the Trial with the EQUINOX Consortium to analyse results coming from all of the Partners contributing to the Trial. By entering the Trial you agree to your information being used as such.
Octopus Energy may contact you to invite you to participate in further studies within the trial, run by Partners. Any agreement that you choose to enter into with Partners will be governed by their Privacy Policies and is separate from Octopus Energy.
Octopus energy in its sole discretion reserves the right to withdraw or vary the Rules and/or any offer made in connection with them in order to comply with the decision of any relevant judicial or regulatory body and shall not be held liable to any entrant for so doing.

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