Trial scheme will pay householders to delay electricity use
Thousands of homes could soon be paid to halve their electricity usage for a couple of hours daily when the UK’s power demand is high under a new scheme to help reduce energy bills and create a zero carbon power supply system.
From next week the trial by Octopus Energy and National Grid’s electricity system operator will offer the household supplier’s customers the chance to earn money by cutting their power use by between 40% and 60% below normal levels during a set two-hour period.
They could be asked to delay a laundry cycle or a dishwasher load when demand on the UK’s power grid typically climbs, such as between 9am and 11am and again between 4.30pm and 6.30pm. If they meet their electricity reduction targets they could earn up to 35p for every kilowatt-hour of electricity saved.
Households will be told about each two-hour trial window by 4pm the day before it is scheduled, so they can choose in advance whether to opt-in or not. Octopus Energy is poised to invite 1.4m of its customers with an installed smart meter to take part from Friday this week, and expects about 100,000 homes to sign up for the trial which runs until the end of March.
The trial could be a welcome opportunity for eligible households after the energy regulator warned that the cap on energy tariffs would soar by almost £700 from April to an average of about £2,000 a year to reflect the recent surge in global gas market prices.
The trial will also help National Grid’s electricity system operator to gather data which it could use to reach its goal of running a zero carbon electricity grid by 2035.
Convincing households to become more flexible about when they use electricity is also expected to be crucial in the UK’s ambition to become a net zero carbon
Read more on theguardian.com
