Inside Octopus Energy

In this episode, our podcast host, Russell Goldsmith, chats with Alex Schoch, who heads up our global flexibility team, and Devrim Celal, the CEO of Octopus’ flexibility technology arm KrakenFlex about how to unlock the untapped resource of household flexibility. It’s clear – we’re entering a new era of energy in which households are moving from passive off-takers to active enablers of a smarter, greener and cheaper grid. For the first time ever, UK’s National Grid this winter is offering a new service to households, allowing them to reduce their usage during times of peak demand and get paid for it. Alex and Devrim explain how the scheme works and what other innovations we are working on to build the smart grid of the future.

The well regarded Energy Advice UK Facebook group, founded by Gemma Hatvani in 2020, now holds nearly 100,000 members. Octopus's Chief Product Officer Rebecca Dibb-Simkin talks to Gemma and her colleague Ian about their rollercoaster journey, how their community supports each other and works with suppliers, and shares some energy efficiency advice from the group.

Octopus Energy is known for its breakthrough innovations - one of the most exciting ones is The Fan Club, the world’s first local tariff that provides customers living near wind turbines with cheaper energy when the wind is blowing, with a discount of up to 50%. In this episode, we welcome back Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation, who explains how the tariff has come about, how it works and what impact it has had so far. We also hear from the Fan Club’s first customer James Laing, sustainability pioneer and Fan Club fan Julia Hailes, and Dan Gowthorpe, who hosts one of Octopus’ Fan Club wind turbines.

In Episode 8, we chatted to the people who head up Octopus Energy around the world. And so off the back of that discussion, we decided to invite each of those CEOs back onto the podcast for a deeper dive into Octopus Energy in their respective territories, but also with a view of meeting some more members of their teams to get a real understanding of what it's like to work for our company around the globe and find out a bit more about some of the projects they are working on. For the first in this special series of episodes, we're off to Octopus Energy Germany with Andrew Mack and his team.

Green energy is already the cheapest way to generate electricity, but we need to build a lot more solar and wind farms to move the world to a fully green energy system. In this episode, our host Russell Goldsmith delves into the world of Octopus Energy's green generation arm. Joined by Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation, Matt Setchell, Co-head of Octopus Renewables, Paul Loran, Head of Innovation, and Ashleigh Gray, Chief of Staff, they talk about how Octopus is disrupting the renewable generation space in favour of consumers.

The UK currently faces a massive hike in energy bills as a result of global energy prices, which will force many more families into fuel poverty. The energy industry and the government are working hard to soften the blow of sky-high global gas prices on consumers. In this special episode, host Russell Goldsmith was joined by Octopus Energy Group’s CEO and founder, Greg Jackson, to talk about the causes of the crisis, the actions industry and government are taking to protect customers, and the changes we need to see to make sure we don’t end up in the same situation again.

In just five years, Octopus Energy has gone from strength to strength and become a truly global company. In this episode, our host Russell Goldsmith tries to find out if Octopus's success in the UK can serve as a blueprint for other countries. He's joined by the people who head up Octopus Energy around the world: Michael Lee, CEO of Octopus Energy USA; Roberto Giner, CEO of Octopus Energy, Spain; Giorgio Tomassetti, CEO of Octopus Energy, Italy; Hajime Nakamura CEO in Octopus Energy Japan, Ari Sargent, Managing Director of Octopus Energy, New Zealand and finally Octopus Energy Germany’s CEO, Andrew Mack.

In a first for the Inside Octopus podcast, we throw out the rulebook and feature no representative from the eponymous company. Instead, we speak to the five-year-old winners of our fifth birthday competition, about what they did to win, how we can stop climate change, and why they're excited for the future.

In this episode, our podcast host, Russell Goldsmith, makes a road trip to Octopus Energy’s multi-million pound commitment to the decarbonisation of heat, for a guided tour from some of the tentacled experts, old and new, working on the green heating revolution. Following all the COVID guidelines to be there, Russell was joined by Clem Cowton, Director of External Affairs, and John Szymik, CEO of Octopus Energy Services plus newer recruits, Aimee Clark, Head of Commercial an expert in bringing new, smart tech to the mass market, and Peter Konowalczyk a leading physicist and pioneer in the heat pump space.

In Episode 2, we already spoke about our technology platform Kraken - the giant robot that sits at the heart of Octopus Energy and the enabler of our rapid growth, innovative products, and outstanding customer service. In this episode of Inside Octopus, we talk about the transformative power that Kraken can unleash in other energy companies, one of which is European energy giant E.ON, which began licensing Kraken for its UK business in March 2020 and since then has migrated more than 2.2m customers onto the new digital platform. Host Russell Goldsmith is joined by Dr. Karsten Wildberger, Chief Operating Officer at E.ON, and Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson to talk about the changes Kraken has brought about for E.ON UK.