British Gas customers signed up to PeakSave can save money by reducing their electricity use between 5.30pm and 6.30pm today.
The energy giant is joining the ESO Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) test event, which encourages eligible customers to use 30% less energy than usual in certain time periods, and earn £3 per kWh saved.
The National Grid electricity system operator (ESO) launched the demand flexibility service for the winter period 2022 – and it’s back again for this winter.
The scheme rewards households and businesses that shift their electricity use during DFS events. More than 1.6 million households and businesses participated in the scheme last winter.
The ESO has already run live events this winter, but tonight is a “test event”. Households don’t need to turn off all their electricity during test or live event periods, but instead reduce usage by not using appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, and electric ovens, and not charging devices such as smartphones, laptops or electric cars.
To take part, British Gas customers need to be signed up to PeakSave. PeakSave is available to all British Gas customers with a smart meter that sign up to half hourly reads. All savings will appear as a credit on customers’ energy bills.
PeakSave encourages households to switch the bulk of their energy use to quieter times in the week. For example, users can receive 50% off all electricity between 11am and 4 pm every Sunday, including Christmas Day, as part of PeakSave Sundays.
Typically, there is a greater amount of renewables available in the UK’s energy system on a Sunday because of lower demand from business and industry, which reduces the requirement for energy generated by fossil fuels.
British Gas said more than 425,000 customers taking part in PeakSave Sundays have been paid £2.5m so far for moving their activities to non-peak times and they have also contributed to a greener grid with almost 60 tonnes of Carbon emissions saved. They have shifted 3032 MWH of electricity to Sundays from other days of the week.
British Gas is also offering customers PeakSave Winter by taking part in the ESO Demand Flexibility Service events, such as tonight.
Catherine O’Kelly, managing director of British Gas Energy at British Gas, said: “The results from the scheme so far have been really positive and show that half price electricity on Sundays is helping our customer to save money while also shifting usage away from peak times.
“We expect the benefit of these savings to increase through the winter, as home energy usage goes up, and we hope to welcome even more customers to the PeakSave scheme to take advantage of the savings.”
