We have been in the Power Up’s scheme since it first launched (October 2023?). In that time we have received about 1150kWh of free electricity! In 2024 the free electricity is about 12% of our total annual electricity import so its a substantial benefit of being on Octopus
I was so excited at my first free energy session with Octopus. I turned on everything I could, even had extra toast. A bit deflated when I discovered I saved 62 pence 😮
I live in the West of Cambridgeshire. I get free electricity from Octopus. I do not have an EV but I can find a lot of things in my house to use this free electricity. I find it incredible to get free electricity and very fortunate.
Really good clear explanation of the reason why energy companies give free electricity rather than turnoff the generation equipment. In South Lincs we only get “free slots” very occasionally which is strange as in Norfolk only 10 miles away they are quite frequent.
it does seem to be an a postcode by postcode system, there are people 5 miles from me who don’t get then. it’s probably down to density of people, they need it to be just right, if too many people take advantage it may negate the whole advantage of giving away as they may turn on more power to cope
I'm an Octopus customer in the Eastern Region (Hertfordshire) but have never seen any mention of Power-ups and my online page doesn't look like yours. I'm now recalling that some time ago there was a list of postcodes getting special treatment. Or maybe, that I'm on Agile from April/ May - October/November and Flux the rest of the time. Regarding Hydropower, I took a holiday in Scotland this year and was pleasantly surprised that the first tour was to Cruachan Power station. When the guided tour was complete I enquired about the pumping of the water back up the mountain. The Guide said that for many years this was done on Sundays, generation was pretty consistent then, but now it's done whenever it's financially beneficial😀
I believe its done on postcodes, not sure why but the email saying we will make power available includes my postcode. I was watching a video about pumped hydro and it says exactly what you describe. It used to be a scheduled pumping day, now a computer figures out when its the cheapest for them to pump and it does it constantly on/off when ever they can make or save money, which makes sense if you think about it
You’re absolutely right, there’s probably 100 different variables that we just don’t have any visibility of the octopus are watching and deciding when to give away power and when to not
@@JonathanTracey Why is it anything to do with govt? that's my biggest issue, they benefit the energy suppliers and people linked to the supply chain of the meters themselves, it shouldn't have anything at all to do with the govt, and the fact the govt pushed the smart meter roll out so hard, tells me there's more to it. On the technical level, I know these things can be remotely calibrated and this concerns me, because the supplier could recalibrate 10million meters to over read by 1p in every unit and nobody would be any the wiser. Digital currency, smart meters, internet censorship, 4000 people arrested for posts on social media, phones with batteries you cannot remove, cars that track everything you do, where you go, can be shut down remotely, send driving data to your insurance company for dynamic pricing etc. I work in technology, i'm an electronics engineer, all of this goes beyond helpful tech and is definitely not for the benefit of the people.
From what I understand the main reason that smart meter failed to work is due to their connectivity, up in the north of England they use radios and people are saying they just isn’t enough spectrum for the share number of metres that are required. The simple answer you would think would be okay. Let them run on the mobile networks well the government declined the option and forced the north of England into the radio spectrum, while allowing the south of England to run on the 3G network. Consequently, lots more people in the north of England are having issues than people in the south. So you see it is government policy ultimately that causes these problems. People with no actual understanding of the technology or even vaguely qualified to make a decision about the technology are ultimately the ones making decisions.
I have been offered this a few times down here in the South West. It appears that other areas get way more free energy sessions. Unfortunately for me they always seem to be when I'm not at home!!
It does seem to very different in each region, I think we get it more often here because the East Anglia region is quite sparsly populated and we have a lot of off shore wind, so best to use it up locally.
I assume those are solar panels mounted behind you on the fence in the intro, have you done a video on this? I've got a large fence at the back of my garden and am quite tempted to do something similar at some point.
Yes I have, it’s few months ago, they don’t do much in winter but as an addition to my roof solar in summer it’s great, whole setup was just a few hundred £
@JonathanTracey We do get the free energy session as they are national , I can charge the house batteries at 8kW, so can easily pull 8kWh in an hour, and out baseline is usually zero. The Power Up's are quite limited in areas covered. Saving Sessions were good last year, but seens to have died a deaf this year.
@@JonathanTracey There's been plenty of potential sessions, either Octopus haven't bothered bidding, or their bids have been rejected. There was a couple recently over the weekend where all bids were rejected and Octopus didn't bid any way, all data is available if you know where to look. As you may be aware they greatly decreased the rewards as well.
Live about 3.5 miles from you as the crow flies. Just finished the 6am to 8:30am Powerup. As I am on Agile Tariff I discharged batteries the the night before at 15p, start to recharge at 3:30am to 6am on Agile @ an average of 3.33p/kWh and continue to 8:30am. At 6am Immersion heater, 5kWs of electric heaters and washing machine goes on. Have to very careful not to exceed 13.8kWhs as I only have 60amp incoming supply. Looks like I'll be earning some money tonight as Agile dips into negative figures.
yep we did the same, cars and batteries all topped up after discharging last night, fingers crossed another few days of this incoming looking at the weather n
Another great video Jon, I didn't realise how start up times for the various generators varied so much, certainly not nuclear. Here in Shropshire we don't get the free electricity from Octopus in the same way, but do get notified abut occasional power-up sessions of an hour or so every so often, so it must be to do with your proximity to the wind farms off-shore. I heard you say that you normally use Agile from March-October. Does that mean you switch Octopus tariffs freely as it suits you - guess its easy when there are no exit fees chargeable. We don't have as heat pump or any BEV's as yet, but we've been on Tracker for around 18 months now and find it very good value indeed. As a very happy Octopus customer and admirer of what Gregg Jackson is trying to do in the market I wouldn't dream of going anywhere else. HNY.
yes you can switch tariffs easily on the website, however there is some ruling around you can’t switch from one tarrif another within 30 days. But I’m not sure if it’s actually implemented. Yes, I generally go on agile during the summer because we are 99% self-sufficient and the odd tiny bit of power that we draw on agile has the lowest daytime rates. Then during the winter when we need to charge the batteries overnight, I go onto one of the EV Tarrifs.
@@JonathanTracey I switched from Agile to Flux for the Winter. Import was changed rapidly, but I had to remind them about Export, which I only realised hadn't switched over when the bill arrived a month later.
In Ontario Canada i'am on the ultra low rate program. 11pm to 7am its 2.8cents/kWh 4pm to 9pm its 28.8cents/kWh Rest of the day its 12.2cents/kWh Ultra low rate home charging it costs me about $8.00 per 1000km for my LR Model Y Use my solar system batteries during the 28.8 time and some of the 12.2 time, works great in the summer. In winter not so much, but do load shifting battery charging at 2.8 to using at 28.8 But if I want truly free electricity, just run a extension cord to my neighbours outside outlet.
@@JonathanTracey In Ontario currently it's 63% nuclear ( major source ) 25% hydro ( can go as high as 35% ) 5% gas ( can go as high as 35% ) 5% wind ( can go as high as 35% ) 0% solar but it's still dark ( can go as high as 12% ) Unfortunately current Conservative goverment is anti renewable, pro nuclear so no future renewable is planned.
Would love to get free Power Ups. We are in the East also, and in an area that get power ups, but as we are on a new build estate our postcode isn’t registered and Octopus for some reason can’t add us, even though original brownfield housing around us can. Have challenged them but get the generic response that they have to work with different local operators to make it happen!! Love the Agile Tariff though, so not all bad!! 😊
adding new postcodes seems to be one of the most antiquated processes in this country. We had our postcode changed about 20 years ago and we’re still getting official government mail with the old postcode address on it. So it doesn’t surprise me that you’re having problems. Hope you get this sorted soon.
The power-ups scheme is only available in postcodes that UK Power Networks allow basically some parts of Kent and bits of East Anglia. It seems to be done according to which local substation you are connected to. In my village of about 1000 homes only around 20 houses get powerups and those houses are simply supplied from a different substation. I have also noted that the most densely populated areas seem to be avoided like the centres of Norwich and Ipswich. Presumably in those areas the demand could easily outstrip supply.
"postcode isn’t registered": Hopefully, the Ambulance service is moving quicker to update these days. I recall playing the 'hunt the ambulance game', where they could be heard but not seen. I later learned from another part of the country that they hadn't been updating their systems!
I don’t think it has anything to do with your ability to pay, it’s where they have free energy. They make it available to certain postcodes. If you have a large wind farm nearby then you’re more likely to get free energy when the wind blows.
No good for me. I'm with Octopus in Lincolnshire but my postcode doesn't get it. So essentially, I'm subsiding your usage, even though we have so many wind farms less than 40 miles away - off Skegness etc. And tbh, I really cannot see the difference between EV users and battery storage. They are, after all, both storing electricity for use at some other time of day. But I don't ever get the option of paying mere pennies (or nothing) for my electricity consumption. Yep, system is totally broke. Time it was changed.
The UK energy market is unfit for purpose. Customers are not benefitting from cheap renewable energy and energy generation companies being paid billions of £ to not generate renewable energy. Since labour too power the cost of energy has gone up steadily. We need an urgent radical change to how the cost of wholesale energy is calculated. The link to oil and gas prices needs to broken and instead the cost based on renewables. Scotland produces more renewable energy annually than it can use and if we had regional energy prices scotland would have the cheapest energy in Europe. Imagine what that would do for reducing poverty, employment and industry.
I completely agree-the UK energy market does need serious reform. Linking the price of renewably generated electricity to imported gas prices makes no sense, especially when we could be benefiting from Scotland’s vast renewable energy potential. If the market were regionalized as you suggest, Scotland would undoubtedly have the cheapest power in the UK, which seems only fair given its contribution to green energy. That said, I think it’s a bit unfair to pin this all on the Labour government-they’ve only been in power for 179 days. Years of mismanagement and policies favoring lobby groups have landed us in this situation, and it’s going to take a lot more than half a year to undo the damage. Let’s hope real change is on the horizon.
equality is good but it shouldn’t mean bringing everyone down to the lowest level, it should be about raising everyone up. nono e in the north complains about lower cost of living compared to those in london.
That’s pretty good, get ready to use as much as you can and get paid for doing it. Also make sure everything is secured down in the garden as it’s gonna be a windy night.
i would imagine it’s simpler for them to do it this way, that way you don’t make changes to the billing system every time, just issue credits to accounts instead
You obviously had a better teacher than we did, ours would never let us play games even when we smuggle them in. His stock response was if you want to play games write your own, so I did ended up in the headmaster’s office being caught playing a game on the school computers🤦
we were the first year to get the BBCs and our maths teacher was learning at the same time as the kids. tbh most of the kids knew more than him after the first week
Do you take part in the free electricity sessions, and how much do you save?
We have been in the Power Up’s scheme since it first launched (October 2023?). In that time we have received about 1150kWh of free electricity!
In 2024 the free electricity is about 12% of our total annual electricity import so its a substantial benefit of being on Octopus
I was so excited at my first free energy session with Octopus. I turned on everything I could, even had extra toast. A bit deflated when I discovered I saved 62 pence 😮
I live in the West of Cambridgeshire. I get free electricity from Octopus. I do not have an EV but I can find a lot of things in my house to use this free electricity. I find it incredible to get free electricity and very fortunate.
hey Jean, if we know one’s coming the. washing and dishwashers get put on all together. As you say we’re fortunate to have this great facility
Really good clear explanation of the reason why energy companies give free electricity rather than turnoff the generation equipment. In South Lincs we only get “free slots” very occasionally which is strange as in Norfolk only 10 miles away they are quite frequent.
it does seem to be an a postcode by postcode system, there are people 5 miles from me who don’t get then. it’s probably down to density of people, they need it to be just right, if too many people
take advantage it may negate the whole advantage of giving away as they may turn on more power to cope
Excellent presentation. I’ve only recently found your site, but have learnt so much already.
Thanks for the kind words, i really appreciate the support
I'm an Octopus customer in the Eastern Region (Hertfordshire) but have never seen any mention of Power-ups and my online page doesn't look like yours. I'm now recalling that some time ago there was a list of postcodes getting special treatment. Or maybe, that I'm on Agile from April/ May - October/November and Flux the rest of the time.
Regarding Hydropower, I took a holiday in Scotland this year and was pleasantly surprised that the first tour was to Cruachan Power station. When the guided tour was complete I enquired about the pumping of the water back up the mountain. The Guide said that for many years this was done on Sundays, generation was pretty consistent then, but now it's done whenever it's financially beneficial😀
I believe its done on postcodes, not sure why but the email saying we will make power available includes my postcode. I was watching a video about pumped hydro and it says exactly what you describe. It used to be a scheduled pumping day, now a computer figures out when its the cheapest for them to pump and it does it constantly on/off when ever they can make or save money, which makes sense if you think about it
Also if you use energy when octopus are giving it away there’s less chance of you using power at peak times or when power is limited
You’re absolutely right, there’s probably 100 different variables that we just don’t have any visibility of the octopus are watching and deciding when to give away power and when to not
Another incentive for smart meters, despite all the problems they keep on pushing those things.
Yep the government needs to fix hte issues because when they work they are pretty good.
@@JonathanTracey Why is it anything to do with govt? that's my biggest issue, they benefit the energy suppliers and people linked to the supply chain of the meters themselves, it shouldn't have anything at all to do with the govt, and the fact the govt pushed the smart meter roll out so hard, tells me there's more to it.
On the technical level, I know these things can be remotely calibrated and this concerns me, because the supplier could recalibrate 10million meters to over read by 1p in every unit and nobody would be any the wiser.
Digital currency, smart meters, internet censorship, 4000 people arrested for posts on social media, phones with batteries you cannot remove, cars that track everything you do, where you go, can be shut down remotely, send driving data to your insurance company for dynamic pricing etc. I work in technology, i'm an electronics engineer, all of this goes beyond helpful tech and is definitely not for the benefit of the people.
From what I understand the main reason that smart meter failed to work is due to their connectivity, up in the north of England they use radios and people are saying they just isn’t enough spectrum for the share number of metres that are required. The simple answer you would think would be okay. Let them run on the mobile networks well the government declined the option and forced the north of England into the radio spectrum, while allowing the south of England to run on the 3G network. Consequently, lots more people in the north of England are having issues than people in the south. So you see it is government policy ultimately that causes these problems. People with no actual understanding of the technology or even vaguely qualified to make a decision about the technology are ultimately the ones making decisions.
@@Strider9655yes. Control the energy: control nations and continents. It’s all about control.
I think it’s more about money
I have been offered this a few times down here in the South West. It appears that other areas get way more free energy sessions. Unfortunately for me they always seem to be when I'm not at home!!
It does seem to very different in each region, I think we get it more often here because the East Anglia region is quite sparsly populated and we have a lot of off shore wind, so best to use it up locally.
I assume those are solar panels mounted behind you on the fence in the intro, have you done a video on this? I've got a large fence at the back of my garden and am quite tempted to do something similar at some point.
Yes I have, it’s few months ago, they don’t do much in winter but as an addition to my roof solar in summer it’s great, whole setup was just a few hundred £
Unfortunately we are not in a Power Ups area, I'm in the south east, but nearest postcode to me is about 8 miles where I work. 😥
That sucks, do you get access to other types of free power or are you out of luck completely?
@JonathanTracey We do get the free energy session as they are national , I can charge the house batteries at 8kW, so can easily pull 8kWh in an hour, and out baseline is usually zero. The Power Up's are quite limited in areas covered. Saving Sessions were good last year, but seens to have died a deaf this year.
yeah i have only seen one savings session so far, suspect there was more capacity in the the grid so less need for them
@@JonathanTracey There's been plenty of potential sessions, either Octopus haven't bothered bidding, or their bids have been rejected. There was a couple recently over the weekend where all bids were rejected and Octopus didn't bid any way, all data is available if you know where to look. As you may be aware they greatly decreased the rewards as well.
yeah heard that, how are you seeing the sessions that are up for bidding?
Live about 3.5 miles from you as the crow flies. Just finished the 6am to 8:30am Powerup. As I am on Agile Tariff I discharged batteries the the night before at 15p, start to recharge at 3:30am to 6am on Agile @ an average of 3.33p/kWh and continue to 8:30am. At 6am Immersion heater, 5kWs of electric heaters and washing machine goes on. Have to very careful not to exceed 13.8kWhs as I only have 60amp incoming supply. Looks like I'll be earning some money tonight as Agile dips into negative figures.
yep we did the same, cars and batteries all topped up after discharging last night, fingers crossed another few days of this incoming looking at the weather n
In the Eastern region Octopus Agile is generally showing free or negative for 1st Jan until 09:30. There is the usual up-tick at 07:30.
👍
Just finished 21/2 hours of free electricity, filled up my batteries and topped up two electric cars, dish washers and washing machines on, fantastic
the same here, gotta live free power 👍
Another great video Jon, I didn't realise how start up times for the various generators varied so much, certainly not nuclear. Here in Shropshire we don't get the free electricity from Octopus in the same way, but do get notified abut occasional power-up sessions of an hour or so every so often, so it must be to do with your proximity to the wind farms off-shore. I heard you say that you normally use Agile from March-October. Does that mean you switch Octopus tariffs freely as it suits you - guess its easy when there are no exit fees chargeable. We don't have as heat pump or any BEV's as yet, but we've been on Tracker for around 18 months now and find it very good value indeed. As a very happy Octopus customer and admirer of what Gregg Jackson is trying to do in the market I wouldn't dream of going anywhere else. HNY.
yes you can switch tariffs easily on the website, however there is some ruling around you can’t switch from one tarrif another within 30 days. But I’m not sure if it’s actually implemented. Yes, I generally go on agile during the summer because we are 99% self-sufficient and the odd tiny bit of power that we draw on agile has the lowest daytime rates. Then during the winter when we need to charge the batteries overnight, I go onto one of the EV Tarrifs.
😊
@@JonathanTracey I switched from Agile to Flux for the Winter. Import was changed rapidly, but I had to remind them about Export, which I only realised hadn't switched over when the bill arrived a month later.
@robert never considered flux as i didn’t like the variable export always seemed lower than the fixed 15p. what’s been your experience
In Ontario Canada i'am on the ultra low rate program.
11pm to 7am its 2.8cents/kWh
4pm to 9pm its 28.8cents/kWh
Rest of the day its 12.2cents/kWh
Ultra low rate home charging it costs me about $8.00 per 1000km for my LR Model Y
Use my solar system batteries during the 28.8 time and some of the 12.2 time, works great in the summer.
In winter not so much, but do load shifting battery charging at 2.8 to using at 28.8
But if I want truly free electricity, just run a extension cord to my neighbours outside outlet.
i’m surprised it’s not all but free in Canada don’t you guys have huge amounts of hydro
@@JonathanTracey
In Ontario currently it's
63% nuclear ( major source )
25% hydro ( can go as high as 35% )
5% gas ( can go as high as 35% )
5% wind ( can go as high as 35% )
0% solar but it's still dark ( can go as high as 12% )
Unfortunately current Conservative goverment is anti renewable, pro nuclear so no future renewable is planned.
because nuclear does not have any issues does it 🤦TBH ours is the same in the process of building new reactors but no plan for disposal of waste
They also have the Fan Club where you get a cheaper rate on windy days if you live near one of the wind farms they own.
that’s a great idea, i bet a lot of nimbys would object to a wind turbine near them if they got free power from it
@@JonathanTracey that's the idea behind it.
Do you have a link I would like to dig into this more
Power ups is only in South East and East England. It gets ever grimmer up north…..
i hear of some in wales but no one above the great ice wall :-)
But how to use it???
anyway you want, wash clothes, dishes or charge a car if you have an EV
Would love to get free Power Ups. We are in the East also, and in an area that get power ups, but as we are on a new build estate our postcode isn’t registered and Octopus for some reason can’t add us, even though original brownfield housing around us can. Have challenged them but get the generic response that they have to work with different local operators to make it happen!! Love the Agile Tariff though, so not all bad!! 😊
adding new postcodes seems to be one of the most antiquated processes in this country. We had our postcode changed about 20 years ago and we’re still getting official government mail with the old postcode address on it. So it doesn’t surprise me that you’re having problems. Hope you get this sorted soon.
The power-ups scheme is only available in postcodes that UK Power Networks allow basically some parts of Kent and bits of East Anglia. It seems to be done according to which local substation you are connected to. In my village of about 1000 homes only around 20 houses get powerups and those houses are simply supplied from a different substation. I have also noted that the most densely populated areas seem to be avoided like the centres of Norwich and Ipswich. Presumably in those areas the demand could easily outstrip supply.
that makes sense they probably have to check what the max load on a substation will be and if there is too much possible demand then exclude it
"postcode isn’t registered": Hopefully, the Ambulance service is moving quicker to update these days. I recall playing the 'hunt the ambulance game', where they could be heard but not seen. I later learned from another part of the country that they hadn't been updating their systems!
last time i called an ambulance they used what three words
Non free up north on prepay... Only for those most able to afford the extras they buy into a system , how about sharing the joy for the poorest
I don’t think it has anything to do with your ability to pay, it’s where they have free energy. They make it available to certain postcodes. If you have a large wind farm nearby then you’re more likely to get free energy when the wind blows.
No good for me. I'm with Octopus in Lincolnshire but my postcode doesn't get it. So essentially, I'm subsiding your usage, even though we have so many wind farms less than 40 miles away - off Skegness etc. And tbh, I really cannot see the difference between EV users and battery storage. They are, after all, both storing electricity for use at some other time of day. But I don't ever get the option of paying mere pennies (or nothing) for my electricity consumption. Yep, system is totally broke. Time it was changed.
not sure how your subsidising my free power? as i said there are probably many factors in why you do or don’t get it, are you in a town or city?
The UK energy market is unfit for purpose. Customers are not benefitting from cheap renewable energy and energy generation companies being paid billions of £ to not generate renewable energy. Since labour too power the cost of energy has gone up steadily. We need an urgent radical change to how the cost of wholesale energy is calculated. The link to oil and gas prices needs to broken and instead the cost based on renewables. Scotland produces more renewable energy annually than it can use and if we had regional energy prices scotland would have the cheapest energy in Europe. Imagine what that would do for reducing poverty, employment and industry.
I completely agree-the UK energy market does need serious reform. Linking the price of renewably generated electricity to imported gas prices makes no sense, especially when we could be benefiting from Scotland’s vast renewable energy potential. If the market were regionalized as you suggest, Scotland would undoubtedly have the cheapest power in the UK, which seems only fair given its contribution to green energy.
That said, I think it’s a bit unfair to pin this all on the Labour government-they’ve only been in power for 179 days. Years of mismanagement and policies favoring lobby groups have landed us in this situation, and it’s going to take a lot more than half a year to undo the damage. Let’s hope real change is on the horizon.
And, why are we wasting money on building Nuclear power stations??
i don’t like nuclear but will take them over gas anytime
We need to drill baby drill
what exactly would you drill, what oil we had we have used up. better would be to exploit the tides
Been a customer of octopus for years,never offered free lecy.
as i said think it depends on where you live and where they have the capacity
@JonathanTracey No equality for customers.
equality is good but it shouldn’t mean bringing everyone down to the lowest level, it should be about raising everyone up. nono e in the north complains about lower cost of living compared to those in london.
@JonathanTracey that's not equality,it's relative
but your saying you want equality when its in your favour but not the other way, equality means equal
It's-4p tonight
That’s pretty good, get ready to use as much as you can and get paid for doing it. Also make sure everything is secured down in the garden as it’s gonna be a windy night.
Why charge you for it and then refund you later? Why not just charge you zero during that time period?
i would imagine it’s simpler for them to do it this way, that way you don’t make changes to the billing system every time, just issue credits to accounts instead
Beeb!
Model B, with an eprom programmer no less :-)
@ Nice. Spent hours on the school beeb playing Sphinx Adventure and Philosophers Quest.
You obviously had a better teacher than we did, ours would never let us play games even when we smuggle them in. His stock response was if you want to play games write your own, so I did ended up in the headmaster’s office being caught playing a game on the school computers🤦
@ Mr Cox was great, he was a real computer enthusiast. We spent most of our time playing games, but also learning BASIC on both a PET and the Beeb.
we were the first year to get the BBCs and our maths teacher was learning at the same time as the kids. tbh most of the kids knew more than him after the first week