British households and firms cut winter electricity use by enough to power 10m homes
Households and businesses in Great Britain saved enough electricity over the winter to power 10m homes by reducing their energy use during peak demand hours in order to help the country avoid blackouts.
About 1.6m households and businesses received payments to help reduce the pressure on the National Grid during the winter months as part of a demand flexibility scheme run by its electricity system operator (ESO).
The energy users were called on about 22 times to reschedule their energy use to avoid peak demand hours, for example, running dishwashers or tumble dryers at night, which saved more than 3,300 megawatt-hours of electricity.
The energy savings were equivalent to the electricity output of the Keadby gas power plant over 4.5 hours, or three hours of generation from the Sizewell B nuclear power plant.
In return, the households and small businesses received payments totalling millions of pounds through their suppliers. Octopus Energy said it paid a total of £5.3m to the customers who signed up to take part. British Gas confirmed that it made a total of £1.8m in payments to customers on behalf of the ESO.
Claire Dykta, the ESO’s head of markets, said the scheme successfully demonstrated “the interest of UK consumers and businesses in playing a more active role in balancing our electricity needs”.
She said: “We are now working with industry and consumers to establish how this world-leading service can grow from strength to strength and support the continued evolution of consumer flexibility in the UK.” ESO is expected to run the scheme again next winter.
Countries across Europe took steps to reduce their energy consumption over the last winter after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which caused market prices to sky-rocket and
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