Man earns almost £100 with 90-minute energy bill trick

Graham earns £7 every time he does it with six more chances to earn in December

A man has earned nearly £100 by turning down his thermostat during cold snaps to take pressure off the National Grid. The 'Demand Flexibility Service' was trialled last winter - and last week people were asked to turn heating down in exchange for money again.

Graham Felton, 68, has taken part in 20 'switch offs' - earning up to £7 a time for reducing consumption of energy in his four-bed home for 90 minutes a go. The last switch off was on November 29 - the first of another 12 national tests taking place this winter. And it earned Graham another £7.

Six of the 12 'switch offs' are set to take place this month. Retired consultancy business owner Graham said he does it by simply turning his thermostat down in his bungalow at peak hours on specific days - and cooking his dinner a bit earlier.

Married Graham said: "The bungalow leaked like a sieve when we first moved in 35 years ago. "It's about as good as it can get now with all the upgrades. We have an electric infrared heating system so whenever there’s an event, we turn the thermostats down and that saves us enough electricity to hit the target.

"We also avoid cooking during the events but that’s about it. It's a good saving for a very small behaviour change that didn’t inconvenience me at all.

"The heating system runs low level all the time, so it keeps the house on an ambient temperature. They retain heat and so by turning it off for an hour and a half it doesn't make much difference to the house temperature."

OVO Energy customer Graham took part in the majority of the 20 trial DFS events through OVO'S Power Move Plus scheme between November 2022 and March 2023. He has so far earned a total of £96.18 from the DFS events and plans to continue taking part in the remaining events - with 12 due before the end of March.

He said: "It changes the daily routine and it's not a hard thing to do. It's just something that's become habit. It helps us to be a lot more conscious too.

"We're very lucky in the sense that we're financially sound, but it's nice to be able to save anyway."

People with smart meters take part by having their energy monitored every 30 minutes, and have to reduce their normal energy consumption by around 30%. On a number of days between November and March, the energy company asks people to reduce their usage - usually between 5pm and 6.30pm - and customers opt in or out.

Last winter, the Demand Flexibility Service successfully saved over 3,300MWh across 22 events, enough to power nearly 10 million homes. 31 registered providers participated in the service with 1.6million households and businesses taking part.