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Octopus Energy is taking on Tesla and a growing list of home energy brands, with its own range of batteries designed to help households store cheaper electricity and use it when prices rise.
The new Octopus Nook range was announced at the company’s Energy Tech Summit in London and will include a plug-in battery aimed at renters, as well as a larger wall-mounted system for homeowners. No prices for Octopus Nooks have yet been revealed.
It marks a big move for Octopus Energy, which already sells solar panels and batteries from other brands, including Tesla, but is now becoming the first major British energy supplier to offer its own home battery range directly to customers.
The timing is no accident. Demand for solar panels and home batteries has been growing as households look for more energy security in the face of higher and less predictable prices, particularly since the war in the Middle East.
Home batteries allow customers to store electricity when it is cheaper, often overnight on a smart tariff or when solar panels are producing more power than a home needs. That electricity can then be used later, when prices are higher, potentially cutting hundreds of pounds from annual bills.
The most eye-catching part of the launch is the Octopus Nook Cube, a compact 2kWh battery about the size of a shoebox that plugs straight into a standard socket. It is designed for renters and people living in flats, who have largely been left out of the home battery market because they cannot install a permanent system.
The Cube can be controlled through the Octopus app and customers will be able to add extra units, increasing storage capacity to up to 10.5kWh.
For homeowners, Octopus will offer the Nook Collosus, a wall-mounted 5kWh battery that needs to be fitted by an engineer. It can be stacked up to 30kWh for bigger homes with greater energy needs. For context, a typical electric car has a battery capacity of around 40 to 90 kWh.
Both systems can be used with solar panels and will come with a 12-year warranty. They are due to go on sale next year in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Customers will be able to pair the batteries with Octopus smart tariffs, which the company says have already saved customers almost £1bn by shifting energy use away from more expensive times of day.
Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy Group, said: “Home batteries are a brilliant piece of tech and one of the smartest ways to cut energy bills right now.
“Offering Octopus batteries to our customers is a big step in our mission to help people to tap into the cheapest energy possible.”
Talking about the Nook Cube, Jackson said: "You can stack up to five of them to get 10 kilowatt hours, even if you don't have solar panels, they'll pay for themselves in two or three years, and thereafter just keep saving money, because they'll be able to use the cheapest electricity on the grid to charge up, and you'll be able to use it in your home, and if you do have solar panels, it should be an absolute no-brainer."
And on the Nook Colossus for homeowners, Jackson commented: "It's 10kWh and you can stack up to three of them. It'll be about a third cheaper than the best-known battery brands, and all of these batteries will come with Octopus Intelligence built in, so they'll optimise immediately against smart tariffs to start saving you money."
Octopus says it has already installed almost 26,000 solar and battery systems across the UK, Spain and France, as more households look to generate, store and manage their own electricity.
