Octopus Energy customers slashed their electricity use by around 59% between 5pm and 6pm on Tuesday as the company ran the first ever pay to save trial earlier this week.
It was the first time that National Grid had run a service which allows households to be paid if they reduce their use during certain hours. The scheme is designed to reduce the strain on the electricity grid during peak hours when supply struggles to keep up with supply.
Tuesday was only a test run, but the system could in future be used to avoid blackouts. Octopus said that its 200,000 participating customers managed to reduce demand by around 108 megawatts (MW) during the hour-long period.
