Octopus Energy hands £245 payments to 405,000 UK households

Energy giant Octopus has handed out an average of £244.88 to more than 400,000 households in a bumper 12-month period for solar panel generation.

Households with solar panels can not only enjoy cut-price bills as they turn the sun’s energy into power to run their home, but they can also export spare juice into the National Grid in return for cold (or warm) hard cash.

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our Privacy Policy

The energy firm has revealed the extent of its payments for customers on its export tariff between August 1, 2025 and July 31, 2026.

Aided by the long period of blazing hot sunshine and little rain over this summer, Octopus confirmed it has given £99,235,326 to 405,233 customers, which averages out at £244.88 each.

A total of 825GWh has been exported by Octopus, enough to power an entire gas plant for a year.

The sunshine has also brightened interest in solar panels. Almost 74,000 people enquired about installing solar with Octopus during the heatwave months of May, June and July – up 34% on the same period last year.

The hottest day of the year so far at the time was also one of the busiest for solar enquiries, with interest that day 50% higher than the monthly average.

Over the same period, battery-only installations from Octopus rocketed 630% year-on-year, as households increasingly look to store cheap electricity and sell surplus power back to the grid when wholesale prices are higher.

Rebecca Dibb-Simkin, chief product and marketing officer at Octopus, said: “Over 400,000 UK households on Octopus tariffs are already generating their own clean energy, and that number just keeps climbing.

“The more we make use of our homegrown green energy sources, the less we rely on fossil fuels, and the more secure our energy system becomes."

The solar boom comes as clean energy plays an increasingly important role in powering Britain, Octopus Energy said. Rooftop and ground-mount solar generated a record 14.4% of the country's electricity demand this year – helping to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, cut emissions and build a more energy-secure Britain.