UK households could be offered discounts on their energy bills if they use less gas and electricity at certain times.

Following a “successful” trial earlier this year, National Grid said it was looking at rolling the scheme out nationally.

In February and March, about 100,000 Octopus Energy customers were asked to keep consumption within a target at specific times of day.

If they managed to do so, they were given the energy they used for free, The Telegraph reported.

The idea – described as “demand shifting” – is to give people incentives to change the time when they carry out power-hungry activities such as using the washing machine or charging an electric car.

A smart meter is required to take part.

With the Ukraine war making energy less secure, there are concerns about supplies this coming winter.

With the trial complete, last week, National Grid ESO (electricity system operator) held a webinar to gauge how many other suppliers might be interested in joining the scheme, and is awaiting formal responses.

Millions of households could now be added to the scheme.

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“Demand shifting has the potential to save consumers money, reduce carbon emissions and offer greater flexibility on the system and some forms of demand management are already used today to help balance the system,” a National Grid ESO spokesperson said.

“We recently ran a few small successful trials with Octopus to see what can be achieved from an aggregated consumer demand response and there’s now more work to do with industry to consider how we can roll out the service.

“Innovation that drives consumers’ value and reduces carbon emissions will always be deployed as swiftly as possible, in a tested, safe and reliable way.”

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