Free Electricity with Octoplus

You'll need a working electric smart meter so we can verify how much energy you've used. If you haven't got one, you can request one on our website. Once your smart meter has been installed and we have received a couple of weeks of data, you should be eligible to take part. If we can’t get your readings, we’ll apply the average credit to your account.

Octoplus is our rewards programme for smart meter customers. Octoplus rewards smart meter customers for making the grid greener. If you’re not already, it’s free to sign up.

You’ll receive an email letting you know if there is a Free Electricity Session and what times this will be active for. We’ll always notify you as far in advance as possible on the day before.

During the time period specified in the email you can use as much electricity as you like, and any energy above your norm will be free!

Within 2 weeks after the event, we'll credit your bill to cover the cost of any electricity you use during the Session above your normal usage. There’s no need for you to send us meter data, we will get it directly from your smart meter.

You can check how much Free Electricity you've used on your Octoplus dashboard. We'll typically add any credit you've earned within a week or two of a session.

Because they're based on dips in the market (which is changing all the time and relatively unpredictable) we don't know exactly how many opportunities there will be, but we're hoping for at least 5 before we head into winter.

No — once you’re signed up on the form above, you don’t need to opt in each time.

We’ll send you email notifications the day before telling you when to use more power and you don’t need to do anything else.

Free Electricity sessions typically happen when energy demand is low (i.e. often in the middle of the work day), because that's often when there's a surplus of green power. They'll happen on the weekend from time to time, too! If you don't feel you'll be able to benefit, you can always opt out of notifications here.

We’ll always give you as much notice as we can so you can plan ahead. The price of electricity is determined by the market, and impacted by unpredictable factors like geopolitics and the weather. We’ll only know the day before that the electricity price has dropped enough for us to pass the cheap price on to you.

No. When you sign up for Free Electricity, you’ll stay on the tariff that you’re on now. This is just another great benefit for Octoplus members on top of the current awesomeness.

If you have multiple properties with Octopus, you can get credited for Free Electricity in as many of them as you want, as long as they're each signed up to Octoplus and Free Electricity. 

If you have multiple meters at your place, you'll get Free Electricity on the meter that uses the most additional electricity compared to normal during the session – so use more power during the session and we should be able to tell that's where you joined in, and credit you free power accordingly.

Your power really will really be free above your normal usage: all you need to be is an Octoplus customer and if you’re not already, it’s free to sign up.

There's no set limit to the amount you can use, but of course, it's your responsibility to use electricity safely and carefully at home – for example, don't use so much on a single extension cable that you overload it, and make sure you don't overload your circuit breaker.

If you're signed up to take part and we don’t receive your electricity meter readings, we’ll credit you the average amount of Free Electricity used by customers in the session.

Whether it's worth taking part largely depends on what the energy prices are doing at that time.

If it's a negative price period, your power is already better than free, so you'll get billed your power at your negative prices and won't be credited for any Free Electricity.

However, if your price is above zero, you're welcome to take part and benefit from our super-green sessions.

You're welcome to join in. Free Electricity only measures your energy import, not your export. If you're typically running off your solar or battery power around the time of the Free Electricity session, your normal energy use may be very low, and anything you use from the grid above that will be free. WIN!

During the session, fill your battery up to make the most of the free hour.

This is not the same as Power-ups, but you can be part of both.

Whilst Power-ups is only available in particular areas, Free Electricity Sessions are open to all Octoplus customers. So if you live in a Power-up area, you're super lucky to be able to take part in both!

Both projects are all about encouraging you to use more spare green power, so occasionally, they might coincide. During any hours a Power-up and a Free Electricity Session overlap, you'll only get credited for the Power-up (the more valuable reward).

Any power you use above normal will be free – so how do we decide what’s normal? We'll look at your historical smart meter readings to work out your typical energy use at that time of day.

If the Session is on a weekday, we'll look at your half-hourly usage over the last 10 weekdays. If the Session is at the weekend, we'll look at your half-hourly usage over the last 4 weekend days. We'll not include days where a Session took place in these calculations. Once we know this ‘normal’ figure, we can use it as a baseline - any power you use above that baseline will be free.

For example, if you normally use 100watts between 1-2pm, anything over 100watts will be free.

For the additional electricity you use, above your normal usage in the Free Electricity session, you’ll receive a bill credit for the extra electricity, based on the per kWh rate of your tariff.

Occasionally there’s a glitch in the matrix, and we don’t receive your electricity meter readings.

If you're signed up to take part and that happens, we’ll credit you the average amount of Free Electricity used by customers in that session.

We generally get 48 readings from a smart meter into our systems every day, one for every half hour of the day.

Occasionally, we won’t be able to retrieve a meter reading for the specific time of the session. This doesn't mean we're not connected to your meter.

It generally happens if your meter setup has a brief outage at the exact time of the session. It could be either your actual meter unit losing power for a second, or a brief drop in something called WAN signal, which is the network your meter uses to connect. (Think about when the wifi drops out for a second, then you refresh and it’s totally fine.)

This is a pretty rare occurrence, but if it happens to your meter when we try to pull your session readings, we won’t know what you used. We’ll reward you the average extra electricity used in that session instead.

We think that’s a pretty fair solution – it’s very possible you’ll earn more than you would’ve with real readings – and it shouldn’t happen regularly.

If this does happen regularly, it might mean there's a more long-term connection problem with your smart meter. Contact our team and we'll do all we can to patch it up. As an Octoplus customer, you're still welcome to get involved and earn the average credit in each session, or you can opt out any time.

Although the sessions are one hour long, we rely on your smart meter's half-hourly updates to work out how much extra electricity you use.

If there's a glitch and we miss one of your half-hourly readings, we’ll credit you for the average extra electricity used by our customers in that half hour. But it means your usage figures might be missing.

On the other hand, if you use more electricity than usual in one half of the session but we don’t see an increase overall, we’ll still credit you for the extra electricity you used in the half hour you took part. Here’s an example…

Say you normally use 2kWh every half hour and in the session you use 3kWh in the first half and 1kWh in the second, you didn’t use more electricity overall. However, we’ll still credit you for the 1kWh extra electricity you used in the first half as a thank you for taking part!

If there’s a glitch or delay and we don’t receive your smart meter readings during the session, we’ll credit your account for the average amount of electricity used by our customers. However, on the off chance your readings come through in time for our results email, we’ll include your actual usage figures in the breakdown. That's why the numbers might look different. This doesn't happen that all that often, but it's good to be aware of.

Electricity is a lot greener at off-peak times on windy and sunny days – and it’s cheaper, too! Often, there is more than enough renewable electricity on the energy system – meaning that power can go to waste. With Free Electricity Sessions we want you to make use of these precious green electrons and that’s why we’re giving you free electricity above your normal use!

Tap the sign up link above and and select 'No' when we ask whether you'd like to receive notifications. We'll make sure not to send you any more.

You can come back to the same form to opt in again any time.

Free Electricity is like the opposite of Saving Sessions. Instead of asking you to use less electricity to avoid fossil fuels, we’re challenging you to use more to make the most of renewables.

In both projects, you’re helping to balance the energy system, making energy cheaper and cleaner for everyone.