About this episode

The episode discusses Octopus Energy's acquisition of Uplight and its potential impact on US residential virtual power plants.

Millions of enrolled devices, 60 utilities, and the participation rate gap that's been embarrassing the US market for a decade.  US residential virtual power plants have been a promising idea that's consistently underdelivered — participation rates below 5%, fragmented apps, siloed programmes, and utilities that have simply never had to compete for a customer's attention. Meanwhile, Octopus Energy has built the world's largest residential VPP in the UK, with EV driver participation rates of 50 to 70%. The question has always been whether that model can travel to a market where most customers have no supplier choice at all.  Bridget van Dorsten speaks with Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US, about the acquisition that represents Octopus's biggest bet on answering that question: a majority stake in Uplight alongside Schneider Electric, giving Octopus access to established relationships with more than 60 US utilities — including eight of the ten largest.  Nick argues the participation gap isn't really a cultural problem or a technology problem. It's a regulatory design problem. US flexibility programmes have been built device by device, forcing consumers to juggle…

People in this episode

Host: Bridget van Dorsten

Guest: Nick Chaset

Topics covered

• residential virtual power plants
• energy flexibility
• utility partnerships
• Octopus Energy
• Uplight acquisition
• consumer engagement
• regulatory challenges

Keywords

• virtual power plants
• Octopus Energy
• Uplight
• energy flexibility
• utility competition
• consumer participation
• regulatory design

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Octopus Energy, Uplight, Schneider Electric, US utilities

Places: US, UK

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