Octopus Free Electricity is one of the most-searched terms in UK energy, and one of the most misunderstood. It is not a tariff. It is not a single product. It is a cluster of separate schemes that, between them, let some Octopus Energy customers use electricity at zero cost, and occasionally get paid to use it, at certain times.
There are four main routes worth knowing about: Free Electricity Sessions through Octoplus, regional Power-ups run with local network operators, plunge pricing on the Agile Octopus tariff, and the wider Octoplus Saving Sessions programme (which rewards the opposite behaviour, using less power at peak times). None of these is the same as the headline “free electricity” rates of around 7p or 8p you may have seen mentioned alongside tariffs like Intelligent Octopus Go. Those rates are very cheap. They are not actually free.
This page walks through each scheme honestly, who they suit, who they don’t, and how to think about stacking them.
Free Electricity Sessions (Octoplus)
Free Electricity Sessions are run by Octopus as part of Octoplus, the rewards programme. The way they work is simple in principle. Octopus emails or app-notifies eligible customers a day ahead with a session window, usually around an hour, typically in the middle of the day. During the session, Octopus compares your smart meter readings against your normal baseline use for that time of day. Anything you use up to baseline is billed at your normal rate. Anything extra, above baseline, is credited back to your account at the session rate.
In practice this means the way to benefit is to deliberately run heavy loads during the window: dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, oven, EV charger, hot water cylinder, battery charging. If you just carry on as normal, you won’t see much, because the calculation only rewards usage above what you’d typically do at that time.
Eligibility:
- You need to be an Octopus Energy customer
- Signed up to Octoplus (free, takes a couple of minutes)
- Have a working electric smart meter sending half-hourly readings
- Pay by Direct Debit or smart prepay
The seasonality matters. Free Electricity Sessions are most common in spring and summer, when wholesale prices crash on sunny and windy days. They are much rarer in autumn and winter. In 2025, Octopus ran 15 sessions totalling around 19 hours of free electricity, and credited over £3.6 million back to Octoplus customers across the year. Spread across more than two million participating members, that is a modest average per household, and the real-world value depends entirely on how much extra usage you can genuinely shift into those windows.
The honest read: if you have flexible heavy loads and you can act on a day’s notice, this is a worthwhile freebie. If your day is fixed and your evenings are when you actually use power, the headline numbers can overstate it.
Octopus Power-ups
Power-ups are a separate programme. They are run with the local distribution network operator rather than Octopus alone, and they’re postcode-based.
The current partners are UK Power Networks (parts of South East and East England), National Grid Electricity Distribution (parts of the South West and Midlands), Northern Powergrid (North East England, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire), and a scheme in Scotland delivered via NESO’s Local Constraint Market. Eligibility depends on whether your local network operator has a flexibility scheme in place and whether your specific postcode falls inside it.
Power-ups are usually one to two hours long, scheduled when local solar and wind generation is high relative to local demand. Often this is the middle of the day. Like Free Electricity Sessions, any electricity used during the Power-up is credited back as account credit. Unlike Free Electricity Sessions, you usually need to opt in to each individual Power-up after Octopus emails you the invite.
The geographic coverage has been expanding over the last few years, but Power-ups are still not nationwide, and the windows differ between regions because they’re designed to balance the local network, not the national grid.
One useful rule when the schemes coincide. If a Power-up and a Free Electricity Session run at the same time, you’ll only be credited for the Power-up. It pays more.
Agile Octopus Plunge Pricing
Plunge pricing is something different. It is not part of Octoplus and you don’t sign up to it separately. It is simply what happens on the Agile Octopus tariff when wholesale electricity prices go negative.
Agile is a half-hourly variable tariff where the unit rate tracks the wholesale market, with a fixed peak uplift between 4pm and 7pm. When wind and solar are pumping out more electricity than the grid can absorb, often overnight on windy nights, on sunny weekend afternoons in spring, or during low-demand bank holidays, the wholesale price can dip below zero. In those half-hours, Octopus pays you to use electricity.
Agile also includes Price Cap Protect, which holds the unit rate at no more than 100p per kWh even when wholesale prices spike. That ceiling is important to understand before signing up. From 1 April 2026, Octopus also applies a 3.5p per kWh reduction to Agile half-hourly unit rates to reflect the government’s removal of certain levies and obligations.
How often does plunge pricing actually happen? Realistically, a handful of times in a typical month, more often in spring and autumn, less often in winter, and almost never during still, cold weather when demand is high and renewables are quiet. Some regions see more negative slots than others. Independent trackers suggest negative pricing periods totalling in the low hundreds of half-hours per year for some regions, but the distribution is bunched: many weeks pass with nothing, then a single windy weekend delivers most of the action.
Agile is not for everyone. It suits households that can genuinely shift heavy loads into cheap and negative slots (EV charging, dishwashers, washing machines, hot water, batteries), often with the help of a smart home automation. Anyone whose usage is concentrated in the 4–7pm peak, with no way to move it, may end up paying more on Agile than on a flat tariff.
Saving Sessions and Octoplus Rewards
Saving Sessions live in the same family as Free Electricity Sessions but reward the opposite behaviour. Octopus, working as part of NESO’s Demand Flexibility Service, calls events at times of high peak demand and pays customers in Octopoints (800 Octopoints = £1) for using less electricity than their baseline during the window.
Octopoints can be redeemed for account credit, donated to charity, or spent at double value on Shoptopus merch. Eligibility is the same as Free Electricity Sessions: Octopus customer, Octoplus member, smart meter sending half-hourly readings, Direct Debit or smart prepay.
The honest reality check for 2026: Saving Sessions have become noticeably less frequent than they were during the peak crisis years of 2022 and 2023. The grid is less stressed, wholesale prices have fallen, and NESO is calling fewer events. Still worth opting into if you’re eligible, but for most households this is no longer a meaningful income stream.
Octopus Free Electricity Compared
| Scheme | How you benefit | Tariff required | Eligibility | Frequency | Notice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Electricity Sessions | Bill credit for use above baseline | Any Octopus tariff | Octoplus member, smart meter, DD or smart prepay | Common in spring/summer, rare in winter (15 sessions in 2025) | About a day ahead |
| Power-ups | Bill credit for use during window | Any Octopus tariff | Postcode-based, plus Octopus customer with connected smart meter | Postcode-dependent | Usually a day ahead, opt in each time |
| Agile Plunge Pricing | Negative unit rate (paid to use) | Agile Octopus | Smart meter sending half-hourly readings | Occasional, more common in spring/autumn | Half-hourly rates published from 4pm the day before |
| Saving Sessions | Octopoints for using less | Any Octopus tariff | Octoplus member, smart meter, DD or smart prepay | Infrequent in 2026 vs. crisis years | Hours to a day ahead |
Who Actually Benefits From Octopus Free Electricity?
The clearest winners are:
- Solar and battery owners, who can charge a battery during a free or negative-price window and draw it down during peak hours. Stacking this with Outgoing Octopus for solar export is a separate question but worth thinking about.
- EV drivers who can shift charging into Free Electricity Session windows or Agile plunge slots. With one caveat: if you’re on Intelligent Octopus Go and your car is set to charge at the IOG off-peak rate, the IOG schedule may run during a Free Electricity Session, in which case that charging is billed at the IOG rate rather than counted as free.
- Households with flexible heavy loads (dishwashers, washing machines, tumble dryers, ovens, heat pumps) who can genuinely time them around session announcements.
- Anyone in a Power-up postcode, especially if you’re home during the day.
- Households comfortable with app or email notifications and willing to respond at short notice.
[Internal link: Home Batteries Explained]
[Internal link: Outgoing Octopus]
[Internal link: Intelligent Octopus Go]
Who Shouldn’t Expect Much From It?
Be honest with yourself if you fall into any of these:
- No smart meter, or a smart meter that isn’t sending half-hourly readings. No Octoplus, no Free Electricity, no Saving Sessions.
- Not on Direct Debit or smart prepay. That’s currently a hard requirement for Octoplus.
- Usage concentrated in the evening peak with no way to move it.
- Heating you can’t shift, such as storage heaters running on a fixed Economy 7 schedule.
- Postcode not currently covered by any Power-up scheme. You’re limited to nationwide Free Electricity Sessions only.
- Hoping for predictable, scheduled free electricity at a fixed time each day. None of these schemes works like that.
Free Electricity Sessions and Power-ups are useful extras on top of the right tariff. They are not a substitute for picking the right tariff in the first place.
How to Sign Up and Stack the Schemes
Octoplus is the gateway. Sign up through the Octopus app or your online dashboard, and you’re automatically enrolled in both Free Electricity Sessions and Saving Sessions. It is free.
Power-ups are different. If your postcode is eligible, Octopus invites you automatically by email. There’s a check on the Octopus website if you want to confirm whether your area is currently covered.
Agile Octopus is a tariff switch, not an Octoplus add-on. You move onto Agile from your existing tariff in the same way you’d switch to any other Octopus tariff, and your plunge pricing benefit (and your 100p Price Cap Protect ceiling) starts from your new start date.
A few stacking notes worth keeping in mind. Being on Intelligent Octopus Go can interact oddly with Free Electricity Sessions, because IOG schedules EV charging at its own off-peak rate and may run during a session. Solar export tariffs like Outgoing Octopus or Outgoing Agile sit alongside everything described here and are a separate decision. And the wider tariff landscape changed on 1 April 2026: the Ofgem price cap dropped to £1,641 a year for a typical dual-fuel household, and the off-peak rates on Intelligent Octopus Go and Octopus Go fell substantially, driven by the removal of around £150 of green levies including the scrapping of ECO and most of the Renewables Obligation. Worth factoring in when comparing what “free” looks like against an already very cheap overnight rate.
[Internal link: Best Time-of-Use Tariffs UK]
[Internal link: How to Switch Energy Supplier]
FAQ
Is Octopus Free Electricity really free?
Yes, where it applies. During a Free Electricity Session or a Power-up, electricity used above your normal baseline (Free Electricity Sessions) or during the window (Power-ups) is credited back to your account, so the net cost is zero. Agile plunge pricing goes further: during negative half-hours, Octopus pays you to use power. None of this is the same as the cheap overnight rates on tariffs like Intelligent Octopus Go, which are very low but not actually free.
How often do Free Electricity Sessions happen?
In 2025, Octopus ran 15 sessions totalling around 19 hours of free electricity across the year. They are concentrated in spring and summer when wholesale prices crash on sunny and windy days, and there are far fewer in autumn and winter.
Do I need a smart meter for Octopus Free Electricity?
Yes, for Free Electricity Sessions, Power-ups and Saving Sessions. You need a working electric smart meter sending half-hourly readings. For Agile plunge pricing you also need a SMETS2 smart meter or a compatible upgraded SMETS1.
What is the difference between Power-ups and Free Electricity Sessions?
Free Electricity Sessions are nationwide, open to all Octoplus members, run by Octopus, and reward usage above your baseline. Power-ups are postcode-based, run jointly with the local distribution network operator, target specific local network areas, and reward any usage during the window. Where the two overlap, only the Power-up is credited because it pays more.
How do I know if I’m in an Octopus Power-up area?
Octopus has a postcode checker on its website. The current partner network operators are UK Power Networks, NGED, Northern Powergrid, and a separate scheme in Scotland via NESO’s Local Constraint Market. Coverage has been expanding, so it’s worth re-checking if your postcode wasn’t eligible previously.
Can I get paid to use electricity with Octopus?
Yes, but only on the Agile Octopus tariff during negative-price half-hours. This is called plunge pricing. It happens a handful of times in a typical month, more often in spring and autumn, less often in winter.
Does Free Electricity work with an EV?
Yes. EV charging is one of the easiest heavy loads to shift into a Free Electricity Session or an Agile plunge slot, because most EV chargers can be scheduled. The result is genuine zero-cost (or paid-to-charge) charging, provided you’re not letting another tariff’s schedule override the session window.
Does Free Electricity work on Intelligent Octopus Go?
It’s complicated. You can be an Octoplus member and still take part in Free Electricity Sessions while on IOG. The catch is that IOG schedules your EV charging at its own off-peak rate (which falls again from 1 April 2026), and if your car charges during a Free Electricity Session window under the IOG schedule, that energy is billed at the IOG rate rather than counted as session usage above baseline. Many IOG users still benefit, especially from other appliances run during sessions, but the maths is less clean than on a flat tariff.
Can I take part in Octoplus if I’m on a fixed tariff?
Yes. Octoplus membership is independent of which Octopus tariff you’re on, so a fixed tariff is fine as long as you meet the smart meter and payment-method requirements.
How much can I actually earn from Free Electricity Sessions in a year?
Spread the £3.6 million paid out in 2025 across more than two million Octoplus members and the average per-household figure is modest. The real number for any individual household depends entirely on how much extra usage you can shift into the sessions. EV owners, battery owners and households happy to run heavy loads on demand earn a lot more than the average. Households who can’t shift their usage earn very little, even if they’re signed up.
What happened to Saving Sessions in 2026?
They’ve become much less frequent than during the 2022 and 2023 peak crisis years. The grid is less stressed, NESO is calling fewer Demand Flexibility Service events, and the payouts per session have come down accordingly. Still worth opting into, but no longer a meaningful income stream for most households.
Do I have to be a new Octopus customer to join Octoplus?
No. Octoplus is open to all existing Octopus Energy customers as well as new joiners, as long as you meet the smart meter and Direct Debit or smart prepay requirements. Signing up takes a couple of minutes through the app or online dashboard.