Owning some form of renewable generation - such as solar or wind - means you can get paid for the power you put back into the grid.

Octopus sees the future of energy as one where people are closely connected with their power; from local community energy schemes like 

, to individuals generating their own power and being paid for it with tariffs like 

. That’s why our export tariffs are amongst the highest paying in the market.

We're also the only supplier in the market offering a domestic half-hourly export tariff; Agile Outgoing. This is linked directly to wholesale prices, and the amount you're paid changes every half hour based on day ahead wholesale rates. On this tariff in 2022 customers in the London area were paid £1.29 for every kWh of electricity they sent back to the grid (taken from the 

Those high prices aren't available for fixed export tariffs like Smart Export Guarantee, so you may ask: "why is the price I get paid per kWh less than what an energy company charges for each kWh of electricity I use?"

When we sell power to customers, there’s the wholesale cost element; the market price Octopus buys that energy for. That’s an upfront cost, and we always try to buy a full 12 months worth of electricity for each customer. Once that power has been “allocated”, it then needs to get to your home. This is where a lot of other fixed - and unavoidable - costs come into play.

First there’s the transmission and network costs, paid to the companies that maintain the pipes and wires in your area. Then there’s environmental levies and social schemes like Warm Home Discount. Finally there’s our operating costs, which are pretty slim as we are extremely efficient compared to most other energy suppliers.

In short; there are a huge number of unavoidable costs involved in selling you energy and getting it to your home.

When you sell energy to us, you’re not paying a bunch of industry and social costs. This doesn’t make your power any less valuable, it just means you’re only really taking an “operational” cut, which in the grand scheme is a fairly small part of the cost stack when you pay us for energy.

Why do I get paid less for exporting electricity, than I pay for importing electricity?

Why do I get paid less for export than I pay for import?

 is one of our cutting edge beta smart tariffs. Built with fairness in mind, it features energy prices that change daily based on the wholesale cost of energy (i.e what we pay for it).

Whether you’re brand new to Octopus, or you’re already a customer of ours, head to our Octopus Tracker page below to sign up and get all the information you'll need.

Tracker requires the submission of monthly meter readings, and may require the future installation of a smart meter.

What is Octopus Tracker, and how do I join?

On the Octopus Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) tariff, customers get paid for any electricity they export to the grid (via home solar generation, smart batteries, wind turbines, biogas, biomass, CCGT, CHP, crop, hydro and more).

Customers earn a flat rate of 4.1p/kWh for every unit of power they export.

We have a few different export tariff options. 

You can read more about our smart Outgoing Octopus tariff here

Our SEG tariff is perfect for people who’d like to join Octopus for their energy export, but stay with a different supplier for their import tariff (i.e., the power your home uses from the grid). It’s also a great option for people who want to use Octopus Go for their import tariff, and are also keen to keep getting paid for their exports at the same time.

How do I join Octopus’ Smart Export Guarantee tariff?

Whether you’re brand new to Octopus, or you’re already a customer of ours, once you're sure that you meet the criteria below, 

Sign up to Octopus Smart Export Guarantee

If you’re looking to export anything other than energy generated by solar PV, you should get in touch with 

 as you will likely not have an MCS certificate - which contains the details we would usually use to sign you up.

If you’re interested in exporting energy generated by home solar PV via our Smart Export Guarantee tariff, then there’s a few things that you’ll need:

Once you have the information above, you can 

get started with Octopus' Smart Export Guarantee tariff

What is the Smart Export Guarantee Tariff, and how do I join?

 enables customers to get paid for any energy that they produce at home and export to the grid. Our successor to the feed-in tariff (FIT), Outgoing Octopus is perfect for homes with solar panels, battery storage, or any other way of sharing energy back to the grid. The tariff comes in two forms: Fixed or Agile. Outgoing Fixed guarantees 15p per kWh for every unit you export. Outgoing Agile matches your half-hourly prices with day-ahead wholesale rates.

Whether you’re brand new to Octopus, or you’re already a customer of ours, head to our Outgoing Octopus page below to sign up and get all the information you'll need.

You’ll first need a smart meter we can get half-hourly readings from (either a second generation ‘SMETS2’ meter or a first generation ‘SMETS1’ meter made by Secure). 

Here’s how to work out what type of meter you have.

If you don’t have a suitable smart meter yet, you can still sign up for Agile and we’ll get in contact with you to arrange a smart meter installation as soon as possible.

Please note, there may be times when we can’t install your smart meter right away. This is generally due to local Covid restrictions, WAN coverage in your area, and engineer availability. If you're interested in finding out more, we've written a blog explaining 

why we can’t always give an exact timeframe for your smart meter installation

Currently, you can't be on both outgoingOctopus and OctopusGo, our EV tariff, at the same time.

What is Outgoing Octopus, and how do I join?

 is one of our beta smart tariffs, specifically designed to help electric vehicle drivers charge up on greener, cheaper power overnight.

Octopus Go customers get super cheap electricity for 12p / kWh between 00:30 - 04:30 every night, so they can charge up their EV for a tenth of the price of a traditional car, and keep charging costs as low as 3p per mile.

Octopus Go offers a fixed price for the rest of the day (hours between 04.31 and 00.29). [Check your Octopus Go daytime unit price and standing charge 

Whether you’re brand new to Octopus, or you’re already a customer of ours, head to our Octopus Go page below to sign up and get all the information you'll need:

Here’s how to work out what type of meter you have

Please note, there may be times when we can’t install your smart meter right away. This is generally due to local Covid restrictions, WAN coverage in your area, and engineer availability. To find out more, we've written a blog explaining 

What is Octopus Go, and how do I join?

Flexible Octopus is a variable tariff, which means the price you pay for your energy (i.e. the unit rates and standing charge) can rise and fall with wholesale energy prices.

We'll always give reasonable notice of any changes to the pricing of flexible tariffs.

You can switch tariffs at any time - just 

There are no fees for switching from a flexible tariff to another tariff, and no lock-ins or exit penalties if you decide to switch away from Octopus.

What is a flexible tariff?

On a fixed tariff, your unit rates and standing charge won't change for the duration of your contract

Your monthly Direct Debit amount isn't fixed

. It's our best guess at the amount you should be paying to cover your energy charges, based on how much energy we reckon you'll use. If you're using more or less energy than we thought, and you start building up too much credit or debt, you can edit your 

. We'll check in every so often, too, to make sure your monthly payment is about right to cover the cost of the energy you're using.

At the end of your fixed tariff we'll give reasonable notice of your options. If you don't let us know your preference, we'll move you onto a flexible tariff.

What is a fixed tariff?

An ‘Economy 7’ setup (also known as eco 7, two rate, or peak / offpeak tariff) has two different energy prices per day – a day rate, and a 7 hour long cheaper rate overnight. This means you pay less for any energy you use at night (usually between 12:00am and 7:00am) and more for energy used during the day (usually between 7:00am and 12:00am).

Originally designed to benefit homes with storage heaters that would heat up overnight, the tariff can also be useful for anyone who uses lots of power during the night.

Unsure how to read your meter? Try reading 

our comprehensive guide to taking readings

 from various types of electricity and gas meters here.

I’ve got an Economy 7 meter - how do I know which reading is which?

It’s important to get this right as mixing up day and night readings can lead to inaccurate bills. Older electricity meters usually have labels for each register. If your meter doesn’t then don’t worry: there’s a simple test to find out which reading is peak and off-peak.

Take a reading after 8.30am but before 11pm, then another reading 1 hour later. If you’re able, try to make sure you’re using electricity during this period; turn on some lights or boil the kettle a few times. When you look at the second reading, whichever register has recorded usage will be your peak reading.

If your readings have got mixed up at any point, don’t worry! As long as we can confirm which reading is which, we’ll be able to get everything fixed.

My meter only has one reading, why are you asking me for two?

 and you’re sure there’s no second reading, please do get in touch. We might have received incorrect info from the industry database used by energy companies and need to correct it.

The best thing to do is take a clear photo of your meter and 

. We’ll check what’s going on and get everything fixed.

What is an Economy 7 meter and tariff?

 is one of our beta smart tariffs, offering customers electricity prices that change every half an hour, based on the wholesale price of energy.

Why? Outside of daily energy ‘rush hours’ (usually between 4pm and 7pm, when everyone’s generally using a lot of power, i.e. dinner time) 

wholesale energy tends to be a lot cheaper

 (and greener – a much higher % coming from renewable sources).

On Agile, if you can shift when you use power outside of these busy times, you can access cheap ‘off-peak’ prices and potentially save some cash, while using the greenest electrons available and reducing strain on the energy grid.

Agile is perfect for people with electric cars, heat pumps, home batteries and any other big energy-intensive appliances.

We wrote this report when we first released Agile Octopus, so the cap, rates and standing charges mentioned have now been updated to reflect market changes.

Whether you’re brand new to Octopus, or you’re already a customer of ours, head to our Agile Octopus page below to sign up and get all the information you need:

You’ll first need a smart meter we can get half-hourly meter readings from (either a second generation ‘SMETS2’ meter or a first generation ‘SMETS1’ meter made by Secure). 

 What is Agile Octopus, and how do I join?

We pass savings to customers however we can, and different methods of payment are more expensive for us to manage. 

Not having a Direct Debit (and instead Paying on Receipt of your Bill) costs us more in admin and managing your account. We don't think it's fair to make everyone cover that extra cost, so we sometimes have cheaper rates for those who choose to pay by Direct Debit. 

Because we operate a lean and efficient business you’ll still get a great price if you choose to pay a different way.

Why are tariffs sometimes cheaper if I pay by Direct Debit?

The government's Feed-in tariff programme ended for new solar PV installations on April 1st 2019. We have a successor to the Feed-in tariff: 

, the UK's first smart export tariff. For existing installations you can still switch your Feed-In-Tariff to us, as we are a mandatory FiT provider.

On Outgoing Octopus, we pay you for the energy you feed back to the grid, either at a flat unit price, or dynamically priced in half-hour blocks depending on the wholesale price of energy at that time.

Tariffs

Including any questions you have about your old supplier.

What can we help you with?