Introducing Octoplus Saving Sessions

This year, to join Saving Sessions you have to be part of Octoplus, our customer rewards scheme, and you need to have a Direct Debit set up or be on smart prepay.

The only way you can join Saving Sessions is with an electricity smart meter that sends regular half-hourly readings. This is essential, because we use your smart readings to measure what you save during Sessions and to calculate your typical energy use.

We sent all eligible Octoplus members an email between the 28th and 30th November 2024 with a sign up link to Saving Sessions.

If you didn't receive this and believe you're eligible, you can login to your online account and you should see a banner at the top of the page with an option to opt in.

If you don't have a working smart meter yet, register your interest.

With energy prices still higher than historic levels, it's never been more important to help people save power and money. But Saving Sessions isn't just a way of easing the impact of the energy crisis on your bills - it's the start of a new era of energy: one where people genuinely benefit by actively participating in making energy smarter, greener and cheaper. Currently, the UK often has to fire up extra fossil-fuel run power stations to satisfy everyone's energy needs at the busiest times of day.

Rather than paying these (very expensive) fossil fuel generators to turn on, when demand is high, we want to reward people for switching off or delaying the energy they don't need. Not only will this cut carbon emissions – it helps balance the energy system, and allows us to make the most of green energy when the sun's shining and the wind's blowing.

Saving Sessions is part of an initiative from the government owned “National Energy System Operator” (NESO): the Demand Flexibility Service. As part of the service, NESO gives us the funding to reward you for reducing power at certain times and helping to balance the grid.

They've arrived at the lower reward because that's the sort of amount they pay a gas plant to turn on to cover the busiest time of day (it does vary - as would future Saving Sessions rewards). But it's not a fair comparison – they pay the gas plants a lot of money “just in case”, as well as per-usage costs. There's no proposal to do the same for customers.

We'll continue to push for better value for you and hope that things might improve for future sessions. But for the time being, the reward will be about 75-90% lower than in previous years. So it's worth keeping this in mind if you do choose to take part.

One of the changes that the “National Energy System Operator” (NESO) has made this year is reducing the number of megawatts they want us to turn down for each session. In other words, they're keen that we keep a balance and we don't have too many people trying to save power at the same time.

Now that Saving Sessions is so big (thanks to the thousands of you who love taking part each year) and we have a better idea of how to meet the demand, we've decided to approach things in a new way this year by calling on different regions as and when we need help. And, to spice things up, we're making it into a competition: the Regional Rumble!

As part of this challenge, regions will go head to head in a battle to lower the kilowatts and the competition results will be based on the overall % turndown in each region. Keep an eye on our social media channels to see how your region is doing on the low-power leaderboard.

You'll get an email invitation to opt in to every Saving Session in your region (as long as you haven't unsubscribed from our comms). They'll be sent with as much notice as possible. You may also see a pop up banner in your Octopus app which you can also use to opt in. Download the app and learn how to turn on notifications.

Within 10 days of the Session, you'll receive your results via email.

You'll need a working electric smart meter so we can verify how much energy you've managed to save.

If you haven't got one, you can request one on our website.

It's hard to say for sure — we think there will probably be lots more Sessions than last year but the total number will largely depend on how much help the service operator needs and we will be calling on individual regions this time around.

This year, we will also be doing things regionally so you may not be invited to every Session. This is to make sure we stick within the service operator's new requirements, and we don't have too many people saving power at the same time.