Octopus Greener Days explained

What are Greener Days?

Octopus Energy have launched a new feature called Greener Days, to help show when there’s more renewable energy in the electricity mix in order to help the UK cut carbon emissions.

Greener Days are days when there’s a higher share of renewables powering the nation. You can use the Greener Days forecast to plan the best time in the coming week to hoover, do laundry, or charge your EV to help cut UK carbon dioxide emissions.

How do Octopus determine which are Greener Days?

The Octopus boffins check the forecasted wind generation for every night (23:00 – 06:00 the following morning) and calculate the Greener Days score. A score of 100 implies an especially windy night and an unusually high share of wind energy on the grid. This only happens a few times a year. Weather is hard to predict so they’re most confident about the forecast for the upcoming days.

Who can sign up to Greener Days?

Anyone can switch to Octopus Energy (and save £50 straight away!) and anyone who’s interested in their Greener Days forecast can use the forecast tool to plan ahead. You can sign up to receive a Greener Days forecast in your inbox once a week. The forecasts let you know when renewable energy generation is especially high so you can schedule your home appliances, or your EV charging if you’ve got one.

If Octopus supplies green energy how can some days be greener than others?

When you sign up with a renewable energy supplier like Octopus, they don’t pump green energy through a separate ‘green grid’ straight to your home. Instead, all energy sources – whether “green” or “dirty” – get mixed together when they’re fed through the wires that lead to your home. The reason Octopus can claim to be a ‘green’ supplier is that they buy green energy from renewable energy generators to replace the energy their customers use (making the ‘energy mix’ greener in the process) over the years. So day to day, you can still be using energy at ‘greener’ or ‘dirtier’ times. On a greener day, the share of renewable energy is especially high.

What is the benefit of Greener Days for me?

The Greener Days forecast shows you the daily energy mix of the grid. This gives you the power to decide if you’d like to use more energy on Greener Days and less on others, to help you cut your carbon emissions.

I have an EV – how can Greener Days benefit me?

If you have an EV, you can earn what Octopus Energy calls Octopoints when you charge your EV on a Greener Day. The more often you charge on Greener Days, the more Octopoints you can earn . If you’d like to go even further, tariffs like Agile Octopus and Tracker actually financially reward you for planning your energy use around the UK’s power mix. Octopus even reward streaks of Greener Days charging, with one charge a week that must be done on a Greener Day (weeks run from Monday to Sunday). You can earn up to 80 Octopoints per week.

What are Octopoints?

Octopoints are a way of rewarding Octopus Energy customers. You can earn them in different initiatives like Saving Sessions. There are 8 Octopoints to a penny. They can be redeemed for account credit (in GBP) and in the future, other stuff too.

Is there a relationship between Agile Octopus price drops and Greener Days?

Agile’s pricing is often cheaper when the energy in the grid is greener, and more expensive when energy is dirtier. Usually, when the UK’s fossil fuel generating stations have been turned on to meet high demand. But Octopus Agile is tied to wholesale prices which are impacted by a range of other factors. Read more about Octopus Agile.

Is there a relationship between Intelligent Octopus Go and Greener Days?

Intelligent Octopus Go already optimises your charges to the cheapest and greenest times every day. But because of weather changes, some days are still greener than others. Put simply, the stronger the wind, the greener the grid – and the more green electrons to fuel your EV.

Can I still charge my EV if I am away on the Greener days?

Yes. Intelligent Octopus Go will always try to schedule your charge to the greenest times of the night. 

Find out more and sign up to Octopus Energy now to save £50, get 800 Octopoints and access the Greener days forecast as well their super smart balance forecaster. Octopus customers even get to take the wheel of fortune for a spin every time they submit a meter reading!