Octopus Power-ups - Scotland

Power-ups a brand new offering to Octopus customers in particular areas who get paid to use extra electricity at certain periods of time. Certain parts of the Grid network have a surplus of green energy but it often goes to waste, as there’s nowhere for it to go and noone is being told to use it. Power-ups Scotland will encourage you to use any this extra electricity, and any power you use above your norm will be completely free.

We'd love it to be. There are a few reasons it's not. First of all, we're running Power-ups Scotland with network operator National Grid ESO, who're managing very specific parts of the network. This is why session times and rewards vary based on where you live. We'd love to work with more operators to bring it to more homes. If you want Power-ups in your neck of the woods, let us know.

The other major reason (and it's a big one) is that Power-ups is designed to balance the network on a hyper-local level by targeting specific areas where there's regularly more renewable supply than demand. In some places, this just doesn't happen, so Power-ups may never be a perfect fit for your area.

There will always be other ways you can get benefits for using energy in the greenest way – like Saving Sessions, where you can be paid for cutting power when it's dirtiest. We also have super smart tariffs like Agile, where, when there's plenty of renewables powering the whole system, customers can be paid to use energy.

Eligibility is highly locationally dependent. There are certain parts of the network which regularly experience periods of surplus renewable generation, only customers in these zones will receive Power-ups. Some areas may receive more Power-ups than others.

If you are in the right location and have a working smart meter, we'll email you.

Power-ups is for electricity only.

• After you’ve signed up, you’ll receive an email letting you know if there is a Power-up in your area and what times this will be active for. We’ll always try and notify as far in advance as possible, but this depends on when we receive information from the network operator.
• During the time period in the email you can use as much electricity as you like, and any energy above your norm will be free! Remember to only look at the email you receive (eg not social media) as Power-ups are dependent on location not everyone will receive a Power-up at the same time.
• After the event, we'll add a credit to your account to cover the cost of any electricity you use during the Power-up above your normal usage. There’s no need for you to send us meter data, we will get it directly from your smart meter.

• We'll look at your historical smart meter data to work out your typical energy use at that time of day.
• If the Power-up is on a weekday, we'll look at your half-hourly usage over the last 10 weekdays. If the Power-up 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 Power-up took place in these calcs.
• You'll then earn money for every kilowatt hour you 'turn up' during a Power-up above your normal use.

You'll be able to sign up to Octoplus and we will let you know soon if you can take part in both Power-ups Scotland and Saving Sessions (or any other similar services at the same household). As this is a hyper-localised campaign, there are different rules, requirements and rewards depending on your local area.

You’ll need a working electric smart meter so we can credit your bill for your electricity usage during the Power-up. We need to receive half-hourly readings from your meter and have 80% of your smart meter readings in the last 20 days for you to be eligible to sign up.

If you don’t have a smart meter yet, join the list here.

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.

All notifications will happen via email.

They'll be sent with as much notice as possible – probably on the same morning.

You'll not receive notifications via the app (if we get lots of participation for Power -ups, we’ll look to introduce an app feature as well).

Power-ups could happen any time there's a surplus of renewable electricity in your area. This could be in the middle of the day, when solar is high, or could be in the middle of the night when it's super windy.

Areas with lots of solar power are likely to get more Power-ups in Summer months.

There’s no limit to how much electricity you can use during the Power-up. However, please don’t go overboard and follow safe practices (for example don’t overwhelm extension cables). And don’t overload your circuit breaker. Octopus is not responsible if your circuit breaker trips.

It's your responsibility to ensure you don't overload your home circuit breaker. Octopus accepts no responsibility if it trips during a Power-up.

You need to be an Octopus customer to be eligible for Power-ups. If they aren’t, they won’t benefit from the reduced price of electricity. If your neighbour is an Octopus customer, feel free to suggest they check their emails for the invite.

But! Given the nature of the local network, it's also possible your neighbour isn’t eligible - sometimes one side of the street experiences different conditions to the other.

We'll look to increase participation on a rolling basis. If you've just joined us and meet the eligibility criteria we expect to send out requests for new sign ups every few months, so please just wait for the email or follow the steps above.

Nope! As long as your smart meter itself is working, you can join. Your smart meter is the unit attached to the wall, usually in a cupboard under the stairs.

The in-home display is different to your smart meter – it's the little screen that's usually plugged in and sits on a bench somewhere in the house showing your energy usage info.

You can join Power-ups even if your screen doesn't work, or you don't have one.

Very rarely, external issues like data outages or connection interruptions mean we might not be able to retrieve readings from your smart meter during a Power-up you opted into.

If that happens, we won’t know how much you used. Instead, we'll credit you based on the average electricity used by other customers during that Power-up.

We’ll do all we can to get your meter working again. Though rare, some problems can be very tricky to fix – we're dependent on a whole host of third-party govt-mandated systems to make smart meters work, so sometimes it's outside of our control. We'll do our best to keep your meter connected but we can't guarantee it.

If we're no longer getting regular meter readings (meaning half-hourly readings every day for the last twenty days) we may contact you to let you know you're not eligible to take part anymore, and you won't be able to get half price electricity in Power-ups.

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 Power-up. This doesn't mean we're not connected to your meter. 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.)

Yes, customers on Intelligent Octopus are eligible to take part and use the reduced-priced electricity during a Power-up.

Your charging schedule will *not* be updated to charge during the Power-up (we're working on this feature so in future it'll be automatically adjusted for you). You can use the Boost charge feature to schedule your EV to charge during the Power-up if you like, but it’s your responsibility to ensure this stops when the Power-ups ends.

Yes, customers who generate and export electricity (via solar panels, for example) can take part in Power-ups.

Power-ups is brand new and hyper-localised, so we’re starting small. There’ll be no specific progress page or app but we'll process the credit every other week so you'll see it in next month's bill.

We’ll email you to let you know how you’re doing every few weeks. As Power-ups grows, this might change!

We’ll be trialling Power-ups Scotland for a few months, with the hope of extending it for longer.

We're planning to work with other network operators too. Agreements we have with each operator will be a bit different, with different processes and rewards. Power-ups in your area might stop in a year, just as they start up in another area. We’ll give you plenty of notice if Power-ups are ending.

We will process the credit monthly so you will be able to see it in your next month's bill.