British Gas extends demand flexibility offering

British Gas is extending its demand flexibility offering which provides customers with half price electricity on Sundays.

The scheme was rolled out in September but will now be extended until the end of the year, with discounted rates also available on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

So far, British Gas has paid almost £1.3 million to over 250,000 customers taking part in the PeakSave Sunday scheme. They have shifted a combined 1,116MWh of electricity to Sundays from other days of the week.

The PeakSave scheme was originally devised as part of the National Grid’s Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) during last winter, which incentivised customers to use energy when prices were lower.

As part of the Sunday-specific version of the scheme, customers are rewarded with 50% off all electricity used between 11am and 4pm. The discount is available to new and existing PeakSave customers, and all savings will appear as a credit on customers’ energy bills.

Typically, there is a greater amount of renewables available in the UK’s energy system on a Sunday because of lower demand from business and industry, which reduces the requirement for energy generated by fossil fuels.

Catherine O’Kelly, managing director of British Gas Energy, said: “With people spending time at home in the run up to the festive season, there are great opportunities for our customers to save on their energy bills whilst contributing to a greener grid.

“The results from the summer have shown that half price electricity on Sunday is helping our customers save and it’s shifting usage away from peak times.  We’d expect to see even more benefit in the winter months as home electricity use is generally higher.

“As the momentum of demand flexibility initiatives builds, we hope to welcome even more customers to the PeakSave scheme to help create a more sustainable energy grid.”

British Gas has also announced that it will be offering customers the opportunity to take part in the Electricity System Operator’s (ESO) DFS again this winter.

Last week, the ESO announced that it was confident that take-up of this winter’s DFS will be at least three times the size of last winter’s scheme.

Under a “fairly moderate” scenario, the ESO expects around 1GW of capacity to be made available through the DFS. In a more optimistic outlook, the ESO thinks up to 2GW could be made available.

The moderate estimate of 1GW is triple the 350MW made available through the DFS last winter, while the ambitious 2GW target is six times as much.