Demand Flexibility Service

Willow1930

Seen some narrative about this new service promoting off peak use starting possibly in November with some suppliers after a trial with Octopus but can’t see any real details out there. I’m with EDF and they can’t or won’t say?

[Deleted User]

By “some narrative” do you mean a couple of comments in the media?

There aren’t any details, it’s entirely rumours/trials.

Why did you decide that EdF just didn’t want to tell you about it?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

is THIS what you are referring to?

[Deleted User]

The results from Octopus trial seemed to be really disappointing - especially as I would have expected the customers involved to be keen on the system.

Willow1930

It’s not necessarily that they won’t it’s just I asked them and they didn’t seem to know about it at the level of customer service staff.  The narrative is press reports and some details detail on the NationalGridESO website. It’s also referred to on the BBC website again today. It does seem that the trial that has been carried out with Octopus will be extended to some other suppliers but no list of which from what I can say and certainly no mention of EDF

[Deleted User]

Hi,

did you read the link I provided above,

If you would like to be part of the simulated trial event for DFS, please fill in the Trial Event form. Please note that this event is for energy industry providers only.

[Deleted User]

Willow1930 said:

It’s not necessarily that they won’t it’s just I asked them and they didn’t seem to know about it at the level of customer service staff.  The narrative is press reports and some details detail on the NationalGridESO website. It’s also referred to on the BBC website again today. It does seem that the trial that has been carried out with Octopus will be extended to some other suppliers but no list of which from what I can say and certainly no mention of EDF

It’s up to suppliers to apply to run a trial. A random CS agent will have no idea what trials the company is planning to sign up for until they are actually happening, and even then it might be a special team in the call centre.

mmmmikey

This scheme appears to feature much more heavily on the BBC website rather than elsewhere. I'm starting to wonder if this is dubious reporting? The National Grid website appears to suggest that it's an an earlier stage than the BBC website. The BBC makes reference to the scheme starting up in November. Seems a bit optimistic? I would have thought that for the scheme to work in any kind of meaningful, widespread way it would need to be fairly straightforward and easy to understand, but anything that relies on an individual's historical usage pattern seems likely to be just the opposite?

Encouraging people to change usage via a TOU tariff is one thing, and I suspect even that is hard enough. But somehow incentivising people not to use electricity at peak times in another way (other than a very simple "we'll give you a couple of quid if you keep your usage below 1kWh between 16:00 and 17:00" perhaps?) strikes me as being a nightmare to publicise, administer and police - with cries of "that's not fair" coming from everywhere...

mmmmikey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63175030

...more info from the BBC. Maybe I spoke too soon in my last post?

JessieXL

I've just been offered this by Octopus to run from 1st November to 31st March 2023.

ariarnia

more details and discussion here (including details of the octopus trial and how they set benchmarks/decide payments) 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79584879#Comment_79584879