Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) is part of a national effort by suppliers and National Grid Electricity Supply Operators (ESO) to help create a better balance between supply and demand on the electricity grid. It’s a voluntary scheme aimed at encouraging energy customers with smart meters to reduce their electricity usage at specific times when supplies could be stretched.

If you are an eligible household, you will receive a personal invitation via email to register for DFS.

To be eligible to participate you need to be a domestic Ecotricity customer with a working smart meter, and we need half-hourly readings from your meter.

You could save money on your bill - by making small changes you can earn credit towards your bill, and you’ll be joining a country-wide effort to ease the strain on the UK’s energy grid at peaks times. You’ll also be supporting a greener grid by reducing the need to burn fossil fuels to meet demand at peak time.

No, you can only participate in DFS with one provider.

As this is our first involvement in DFS, we will only be giving some of our customers access to this service.

If you are eligible, you will have received a personal invitation to join.

This is for electricity only.

No, you do not need to take part in every event. It is purely voluntary.

You have to opt in to an event before it begins, so we know you’re planning to take part and use less electricity. If you don’t opt in, you won’t earn any reward, even if you do reduce your energy usage. You can always take part in future events though.

You will not lose money. If your usage increases or you don’t reduce your usage, you won’t be eligible for a credit for that event, but there is no financial penalty to you.

Want to de-register from DFS? No problem! Once you have registered, we’ll send you a link that you can use to de-register at any time.

You will no longer be eligible for DFS if you move home, even if you take your account and tariff with you to your new property.

SMS is our smart meter partner for DFS. We work with SMS to collect half-hourly reads from your smart meter. They calculate a baseline which tell us what you would normally use, they then tell us what you used during an event. This data is then used to calculate the savings you made.

We need a reliable connection to your smart meter, so we can see how much energy usage you saved for each event and measure this against what you would typically have used previously.

If for some reason we are not able to retrieve readings from your smart meter during an event you opted in to, we will credit you the average saving that other customers who opted in received for that particular event.

If we can’t get regular half-hourly readings from your meter, you may no longer be eligible to take part.

You will receive an email anywhere from 24 hours to a few hours before the event asking you to opt in to take part.

You will receive an email anywhere from 24 hours to a few hours before an event is due to take place asking you to confirm you’re taking part. You just need to click on the button on the email to opt in to an event. You’ll need to do this each time there’s an event.

The ESO expect to run 12 test events between November 2023 and March 2024. It is unknown how many live events will be run. Live events will take place when there is a specific need to balance the grid. It is not a guarantee that all suppliers will be involved in all events, test or live.

DFS event typically run for 1 hour but can last up to 4 hours. These are most likely to be held late afternoon/early evening on weekdays when demand for electricity is highest.

The simplest way to reduce your electricity use during an event is to shift the time you are using your most energy-intensive appliances, for example:

No, this service is about reducing your electricity use where you can and is not about asking people to go without electricity. Efficient lightbulbs and small appliances such as televisions consume very little electricity, so it is unlikely to be worth adapting usage of these during an event.