How Load Shifting Reduces Your Energy Bills
Time-of-use energy tariffs charge different rates for electricity depending on when it is consumed. Peak periods — typically early morning and early evening for domestic tariffs, and business hours for some commercial contracts — attract the highest rates. Off-peak periods, including overnight, attract significantly lower rates.
Without battery storage, you consume electricity when you need it, regardless of the tariff window. With battery storage and load shifting, you charge the battery during cheap-rate periods and discharge it during expensive ones — effectively buying the electricity you need at off-peak rates rather than peak rates.
The saving depends on the spread between peak and off-peak rates on your tariff, the size of the battery and how much of your consumption can be shifted. On tariffs with a significant price differential — such as Octopus Agile, where rates can vary from negative to over 30p per kWh within the same day — the financial benefit of load shifting is substantial.
Renewable Industry Certifications
Load Shifting Across Key Tariff Types
Octopus Agile and Flux
Octopus Energy’s time-of-use tariffs offer some of the largest peak-to-off-peak price differentials available. Agile tracks wholesale electricity prices half-hourly — rates can go negative during periods of high renewable generation. A battery configured to respond to Agile pricing captures both cheap charging windows and avoids the most expensive periods.
Economy 7 and Economy 10
Domestic tariffs with defined cheap overnight periods are well suited to load shifting. A battery charged overnight at Economy 7 rates and discharged during the day reduces daytime grid consumption at standard rates. Combined with solar PV, the benefit extends further.
Commercial Time-of-Use Contracts
Commercial half-hourly metered customers on variable or time-of-use contracts benefit from load shifting in proportion to the peak-to-off-peak spread in their contract. SPI analyses your specific contract structure before designing a load shifting system.
Getting Load Shifting Configuration Right
The financial benefit of load shifting is only realised if the battery dispatch system is correctly configured for the specific tariff. A battery that charges and discharges on a fixed schedule may miss the optimal charging windows on a dynamic tariff like Octopus Agile. A system configured for Agile may not behave appropriately on a fixed time-of-use contract.
SPI configures battery systems for the specific tariff of each client. For Octopus customers, this means integration with the Octopus API where the inverter supports it, allowing the battery to respond to real-time price signals automatically. For fixed time-of-use contracts, it means a dispatch schedule aligned with the specific cheap and peak windows in the contract.
We also advise on tariff selection as part of the system design process. The best load shifting outcome starts with being on the right tariff — and the right tariff depends on your consumption profile, your battery capacity and whether you also have solar PV. SPI models multiple tariff scenarios before making a recommendation.
