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Making an impact: What does the ADE’s Power and Flexibility Project award mean to Octopus Energy

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By Kieron Stopforth, Senior Manager - Flexibility, Octopus 

Here at Octopus Energy, we were delighted to hear that Intelligent Octopus was named the winner of the Power and Flexibility Project at the Association for Decentralised Energy’s (ADE) Decentralised Energy Awards 2023. It means a lot to the team to be acknowledged by industry experts among so many other innovative projects and cutting-edge technologies that are driving the green transition.

With Intelligent Octopus Go, we’re proud to contribute to the advancement of tomorrow’s grid with effective digitisation and consumer flexibility. By harnessing flexibility from a variety of consumer energy assets such as electric vehicles (EVs), home batteries and heat pumps, we are taking pressure off the grid while giving customers tangible savings on their electricity bills.

What made this project award-winning?

In short, people-powered, resilient grid flexibility. The National Infrastructure Commission confirmed that the UK could save up to £8 billion a year by 2030 if it embraces the “smart power revolution”. Intelligent Octopus is leading the way by harnessing flexibility solutions to help the energy system and energy users and is already being used as a template for rollout across the world.

Enabling energy users to better engage with the energy system

Intelligent Octopus goes above and beyond for our eco-conscious energy customers wanting to lower their carbon footprint as well as their energy bills.

The innovative technology makes domestic flexibility easy by simplifying complex grid concepts, unlocking savings, and inspiring more customers every day to play their part.

The product comprises:

  • Smart energy tariffs at significantly lower rates for device use
  • Full optimisation to find lowest-cost energy based on forecasts of prices, grid signals, and customer preferences and usage
  • A growing range of brands across EVs, EV charge points, smart thermostats for air conditioning, heat pumps, and residential batteries make Intelligent Octopus easy to use for more and more homes
  • An accessible way to help make the most of renewables and drastically reduce the need for burning fossil fuels at times when renewables are not abundant

Harnessing grid flexibility solutions

Intelligent Octopus balances growing energy demand and exploits renewable-powered supply more effectively.

Intelligent Octopus is:

  • The largest virtual power plant in the world based on EVs, with 500MW+ of controllable demand, growing at 20%+ per month,
  • The first aggregation of smart EV charging flexibility live in the UK’s Capacity Market and Balancing Mechanism
  • Supporting grid management by accommodating more smart energy assets without undermining network security

Leading the race to net zero

Grid flexibility is still a new concept to many consumers and it’s great to get additional visibility with the recognition through ADE’s Decentralised Energy Award.

Since the award, Intelligent Octopus has made an even bigger impact. The product is available in the US, New Zealand, and Germany, and will be live in at least three more markets in the next year. In the UK, the Intelligent Octopus GO tariff has grown into the most popular EV tariff.