Here’s some of stuff we’ve done over the years to make this happen faster.
- To accelerate the transition to green energy, we invested £5,000,000 into the creation of the Centre for Net Zero: an arms-length non-profit devoted to researching a low-carbon future energy system
- To fight racism and inequality in energy, we pledged £108,000 towards an Octopus Black Lives Matter fund
- To make sure the future of heating is green and affordable for all, we’re investing £10,000,000 to build a centre devoted to R&D into heat decarbonisation. (Still a bit of a secret, but we might’ve dropped a few hints)
But this work continues all the way back to when we started, just over five years ago.
Making energy greener for all
We’re on a mission to make green energy affordable and accessible for all. We’re doing it by building ground-breaking tech to drive genuine, global system change.
Here’s an in-depth write-up of how we’re working to make energy greener for everyone.
After three years, we’re still the only company in the UK offering people energy that gets cheaper when the grid is greener: through Agile Octopus, through our Octopus Fan Club with cheap power for locals near Octopus wind turbines, or even through our Future Energy trials for customers with smart meters.
LEFT: Our ‘Fan Club tariff’ launched 2021 as reported by the Mirror. RIGHT: Our Agile Octopus tariff launched in 2018, as reported by the Guardian.
Making energy prices fairer
Price trickery is notorious in the energy industry – in fact, Octopus was founded to combat it.
From day one we deployed data science, political campaigning and even an infamous stunt in a Soho pub to highlight dirty tactics used by legacy energy companies to rip off consumers – likely to be the most vulnerable and low-income households.
Back in 2016, when we were brand new, we analysed major suppliers’ tariffs, exposing what we call ‘Tease and Squeeze’ tactics: where you’re reeled in on a below-cost introductory price, and then sneakily moved onto an extortionate rate as soon as your fixed term is over.
We worked with MoneyBox’s Michael Roberts to spread our findings far and wide – here’s his writeup on the BBC.
We’ve already launched a series of internships – the first one, our Ada Lovelace internship – to help show the next generation what a career in the future of energy looks like, and to bring more people from underrepresented groups into the tech and energy industries.
via Computing.co.uk
I started Octopus to spur the green energy revolution. Climate change is the most pressing and urgent issue our world faces, and to truly affect global change, we need to take progressive steps to make energy affordable, accessible, and genuinely equitable for all.
I hope what we’ve done so far is a start towards that future.
Published on 12th October 2022 by:
