Octopus Energy issues smart meter update as Britons urged to cut bills under scheme

Octopus Energy is launching its second Saving Session this week tonight, offering customers 52p for every kilowatt hour they reduce between 19:30 and 20:30.

The energy supplier is calling on households to cut their consumption as Britain's ongoing heatwave combines with unexpected power plant failures to squeeze the national grid.

Intense temperatures have driven up residential cooling demand across the country, while a series of outages at combined cycle gas turbine plants has significantly tightened the gap between available supply and electricity demand.

The high-incentive event, worth 415 OctoPoints per kWh turned down, is anticipated to break previous summer participation records.

Around 1.2 million Octopus customers are eligible to take part in tonight's demand reduction event.

Beyond individual household participation, the supplier's network of 440,000 connected devices will contribute up to 4.5 gigawatt hours of demand shifting to help stabilise the grid.

These devices include home battery systems and electric vehicles that can automatically adjust their charging patterns.

Customers enrolled on smart tariffs such as Intelligent Octopus Go, Intelligent Octopus Flux, and Octopus Agile will assist grid balancing efforts without needing to alter their daily routines, as their energy usage is automatically shifted away from peak periods.

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A preliminary Saving Session held yesterday attracted substantial engagement, with more than 528,000 customers opting in at a lower rate of 196 OctoPoints per kWh.

The frequency of these events has increased markedly compared to last year. Throughout the entire summer period of 2025, from April to October, the company ran just eight turn-down sessions.

This year has already seen six summer sessions since April, including tonight's event. The Saving Sessions programme has distributed nearly £6million to participating customers since its inception.

Meanwhile, those using smart tariffs have collectively saved approximately £1 billion by shifting their energy consumption to off-peak times.

Greg Jackson, the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy Group, said: "Our customers are proving that a modern, flexible green grid is happening right now.

"Faced with a heatwave and unexpected grid constraints, over a million British homes are happy to shift their usage, and move their charging to different times, and get paid for doing so.

"With market reform like zonal pricing, and more use of this flexibility we could largely eliminate these periodic grid issues far more cheaply than relentlessly building new infrastructure."

Originally designed as a winter tool during the energy crisis, Saving Sessions have increasingly become a feature of summer demand management as extreme weather events grow more common.

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