this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
24 points (100.0% liked)
UK Energy
286 readers
16 users here now
A place to post links and discussions around the UK's energy production, National Grid, energy consumption, and green energy news.
See https://grid.iamkate.com/ for the UK's current energy production and sources.
Created 23/07/23
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
okay, so build more batteries
Octopus are an energy company, are they not allowed to build their own storage? Or do they just grift off the National Grid and are asking the government to do it
This is part of Octopus's push for regional pricing so that demand can be encouraged local to the generation by dropping the local price. They argue that the saved money on curtailment and repurchasing power in a different location would mean prices could drop across the country
Are they not a for profit company?
Yes. What's that matter?
I guess I'm just wondering why a for-profit company would want to incentivize price drops for consumers
Octopus was set up because they felt they could use technology to out-compete other energy companies by under-cutting them. Their model of operating is to find ways they can drop prices.
It's a model that has served them very well, going from zero to a multi-national energy supplier in about 10 years with more customers than nearly anyone else.
Partly, it will be they do care. But also, them appearing to care brings in more customers. This isn't going to change prices anyway, directly, because of the way energy is priced by the most expensive source, gas. Renewable companies already have a great profit margin because they are so much cheaper than gas, but with more storage, it could be cheaper still. I.e. more profit.