“Typically, a consumer flexibility program that requires consumer opt-in, you see less than 5% of consumers who participate. For device-based programs, Rush Hour Rewards with Nest thermostats, even there you're only seeing 25%. At Octopus, we're seeing 50, 60, 70% participation rates of our electric vehicle drivers.”
Interchange Recharged · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
Asked why Octopus gets much higher participation in demand flexibility than US programs, the guest gives these figures and blames siloed, device-by-device US program rules. The numbers are his own claims.
Transcript
…and you need to be able to rely on lots and lots of devices to respond in that moment. You want people to be bought into doing it. And we feel strongly part of that buy-in is to expand the value of flexibility beyond just payments for events to continuous optimization and continuous savings.
…not somebody who's participated in this kind of program before. Can Octopus's walk me through what it is about the customer experience that Octopus offers that's so different from what currently exists in the market today and how you're able to achieve participation rates that are so much higher?
I think there's two core bits. One is ease of use. It's just really simple to participate in an Octopus tariff. You have the app already. It's a 30-second journey from deciding you want to sign up to being able to execute the signup. The other bit that's really significant is how we think about characterizing the benefits. All of our flexibility initiatives are tied to direct consumer savings. So, you sign up for Agile, which is one of our flexibility rates, and what you're getting is 75% off the cost of charging your electric vehicle if you're allowing Octopus to have some control over when and how that vehicle charges between when you plug it in and in the morning when you want to get up and go to work or take your kids to school or what have you. And so, because we link the benefits of flexibility to the units of measurement that people care about, how much money am I paying on my bill, and we make it really easy and we create a single location, a single experience to connect every device, we reduce massively the friction associated with participation. Contrast that with the typical experience…
Yeah, it sounds like you're making it easy for customers to save money. Through this uplight partnership, then I would imagine that all of the utilities that uplight is currently serving would be pretty excited to get on board with an octopus app if you're able to, I mean, deliver such excellent…
a great question. I mean, you know, some of that has to be market tested. We have a theory that I have articulated here. Once we get into it with utilities and with uplight, what exactly the nature of that engagement is going to be, I think we will find out. But our theory is that in a world where…
I think you pointed out something that is quite interesting in terms of what I would maybe chalk up to a cultural difference, also like a systemic difference with the way that utilities function in the U.S. being a monopoly. They care about their customers, but the customer usually doesn't have a…
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