Introducing Octoplus, our brand new rewards programme for smart meter customers

Octoplus is our new reward scheme, launching 19th October 2023. Eligible customers can earn Octopoints by taking part in Saving Sessions, and keeping their account in tip top shape.

You can turn your Octopoints into account credit, or multiply their value by spending them in various ways. Right now you can turn Octopoints into account credit but we've got lots of exciting rewards planned which will be launching soon. Watch this space!

Octoplus is a super unique rewards scheme that takes advantage of the half hourly pricing of electricity which changes depending on whether the grid is under pressure (lots of people using energy at once) or when the grid is benefiting from lots of renewable energy meaning electricity is super cheap!

To benefit from Octoplus we need customers to:

• Have their electricity supplied by Octopus
• Have an electricity smart meter (which sends us Half Hourly readings)
• Pay by Direct Debit

Octoplus is also available to business customers who match these criteria, and will also be available to smart prepayment customers.

Gas only customers can’t take part, as the Saving Sessions and Free electricity sessions are electricity based activities.

If you're not eligible you won't see Octoplus in your online account but we will slowly be adding information on how to become eligible in your account.

No – you can be on any standard or smart Octopus tariff and still get Octoplus, as long as you meet the criteria in the FAQ above.

The main way of benefiting from Octoplus right now is by taking part in Saving Sessions or through Free Electricity Sessions. For both, you’ll need a working electric smart meter so we can verify how much energy you’ve managed to save in half hourly time periods.

If you haven't got one, you can request one on our website. We can generally install a smart meter in a few weeks (depending on engineer availability) but we can't absolutely guarantee it. Smart meters work great in most homes, but there are some areas where signal doesn't reach, and some types of homes where they'll have trouble connecting.

If you want a smart prepayment meter, we’re currently recommending you get directly in touch with the team by emailing hello@octopus.energy. We need to make sure it’s the right choice for you before booking an installation.

Rewards with Octoplus can change throughout the year. For example, you can earn Octopoints for saving energy with Saving Sessions in the colder months and access Free Electricity when the grid is super green.

Keep a look out for limited-time surprise offers like free pints or tickets to Glastonbury, too.

But considering rewards you can access the entire year, we estimate you could save £200+ . That’s based on

• getting a free coffee at Greggs or Coffee Nero every other week - worth up to £104
• claiming 2-for-one tickets at Odeon 4 times a year - worth up to £64
• dining out with 25% off at Mitchells & Butlers restaurants and pubs around 4 times a year - worth up to £40

You’ll get access to various perks:

• Free electricity sessions, when the grid is greenest we’ll refund any electricity you use into your Octopus balance as cash. We’ll tell you in advance when the sessions are due to happen as you’ll need to opt in.
• Saving sessions, we’ll pay you to use less electricity during the busiest times of the day.
• Access to the brand new Octoplus Wheel of Fortune, a turbo-charged version of our standard Wheel of Fortune, with larger prizes and even more chances to win!
• Very soon you'll be able to redeem your points against some pretty cool offers, watch this space.

Octopoints are the credit you gain as part of the Octoplus scheme which can be converted to cash on your online account at a rate of 800 Octopoints to a £1 or you can multiply the value of your Octopoints by redeeming them against offers that will be available very soon.

You’ll be able to see your Octopoints balance in the Octoplus tab of your online account or Octopus mobile app. Convert your points to cash by clicking on the ‘Convert Octopoints to credit’ button in either the app or your online account.

Octopoints will last for 3 years. After that they’ll expire, and we’ll remove them from your Octoplus dashboard.

The main way right now is by taking part in Saving Sessions, where we reward you for using less electricity during the busiest times of the day. You can normally earn somewhere between 800 - 1,000 Octopoints per session by taking part.

You can also earn Octopoints by:

• Spinning the Wheel of Fortune.
• Getting a friend to switch their energy through our referral scheme.
• Joining Octoplus!

Shoptopus is our online store for cool Octopus merchandise. Your Octopoints are worth twice as much on Shoptopus and all our profits from sales go to our Octoassist fund to support vulnerable customers. You can find out more about our toy Constantine here: octopus.energy/blog/octopus-toys/

Once you’ve chosen which voucher you want, you need to copy the unique code and apply it at the checkout stage of your order. The code will deduct from your order giving you huge discounts or merch for completely free!

Fyi: The discount code will only work once, so please do not share it and keep it safe.

Open your online dashboard (it's not available in the app yet) and head to the Octoplus tab. From there you'll find Shoptopus.

Your Shoptopus code will be stored in your points history. Go to the Octoplus section of your online account, scroll down to 'Octoplus rewards' and you'll find it there.

Saving Sessions is the start of a new era in energy, where people get rewarded for the energy they don't use at the busiest times of day.

Everything you need to know about Saving Sessions is here.

Saving Sessions happen whenever the grid is at its busiest (and usually most carbon intense). This tends to be in the evening when the majority of people get back from work, stick the telly on, and start cooking dinner.

Get the Octopus app and turn on notifications

If you have the Octopus app, you'll get all Saving Sessions invites via app rather than email, so it's super important you turn on app notifications to avoid missing out on Sessions. Here's how:

If you don't have the app at all, you'll get notifications via email.

Surprise Sessions

In some Sessions, we may only get a few hours' notice. The best way to hear about these is to follow us on WhatsApp and social media:

• Follow our WhatsApp Channel (tap Follow, then tap the bell 🔕 to get a WhatsApp notification each time we post)
  
  Good to know: No one in the WhatsApp Channel can see your details or phone number (including us). Channels are one-way: so only we can post in here. We’ll ONLY use the channel to tell you about upcoming Saving Sessions – no spam, we promise.
  
• Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram

It’s more likely your Octopoints reward will be even higher in Surprise Sessions – don’t miss out!

Free Electricity Sessions could happen any time there’s a surplus of green electrons flowing through the grid. This could be the middle of the day when solar is high, or anytime the wind is extra blowy - which could be the middle of the night!

We’ll do our best to give you as much notice as possible, but the best way to stay looped is to look out for emails from us and follow us on Twitter or Instagram.

The only way you can join Saving Sessions or benefit from Free Electricity Sessions is with an electricity smart meter that sends regular half-hourly readings. To be eligible for Saving sessions, we need to have received 80% of your readings for the last 20 days.

This is essential, because we use your smart readings to measure what you save during Saving Sessions and to calculate your typical energy use, without the readings we don't know what this is!

For Free Electricity Sessions we use the half hourly data to calculate how much credit to add to your account to cover your energy usage for that time period.

Just request one on our website and we'll email you when we have appointments free.
We're installing around 40,000 smart meters a month, and can generally install one for you within a few weeks. But it depends on engineer availability, and a few other factors, so we can't absolutely guarantee when it'll happen.
Smart meters work great in most homes, but there are some areas where signal doesn't reach just yet, and some types of homes where smart meters can have trouble connecting.

As Equinox is a National Grid run balancing project there is a requirement that means we can’t have customers that participate in more than one trial at a time. Part of Octoplus is 'Saving Sessions' which is also a grid balancing trial with the National Grid.You’re welcome to sign up to either Octoplus or Equinox and the choice is completely up to you! If it helps you make your decision - EQUINOX involves less work on your part (all you need to do is switch your heat pump on and off at certain times, rather than shifting all usage out of peak times) and is designed to have an average reward of £55, whereas in Saving Sessions, events will be less frequent and more variable. If you change your mind, you can exit EQUINOX during the trial, but unfortunately you won’t be able to rejoin as we need a consistent data flow for our analysis.

Yes you can join Octoplus, if there is a 'power ups' session at the same time as a 'Free electricity' session, you'll get the free electricity as standard, you won't be paid for both. You do need to 'opt in' to the free electricity session which you will be able to do via the email invite we send you.

Yes you can! When there is a free electricity session, we will schedule your charge to benefit your EV (as long as it's plugged in!). Please don't over-ride your cars' settings as this can cause us problems with scheduling.

Yes you can! Any of our smart tariffs can take part including export tariffs.

Every now and again we find that a very small number of customers use our smart products and offerings in ways that are not intended, to the detriment of the product as a whole and other customers. In these instances we reserve the right to remove the customers in question from the product. The National Grid run demand flexibility service also requires us to allow customers to take part in only one trial at a time, therefore we may need to remove any customers who are on two trials from Octoplus.