Tis the season to be jolly... With half price electricity

03 October 2023

Media Relations

British Gas is extending its PeakSave Sundays offer of half price electricity for another 14 weeks – with discounted electricity for celebrations on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
So far, British Gas has paid almost £1.3 million to over 250,000 customers taking part in the Sunday scheme. British Gas customers have saved 52 tonnes of Carbon emissions and shifted 1116 MWH of electricity to Sundays from other days of the week.
British Gas will also offer customers PeakSave Winter by taking part in the ESO Demand Flexibility Service so there are more ways for customers to save this winter.

British Gas is bringing more savings this winter as it extends its offer of half price electricity every Sunday through its PeakSave scheme. The scheme will now run until end of December and with Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve falling on a Sunday this year, there will be plenty of opportunities to save when preparing for celebrations. With the return of Sunday Roast season and more people spending weekends at home over the winter, savings for a household across the winter could include:

Household activity	Savings - 14 Sundays
Watching television	£1.27
Drinking x10 cups of tea/coffee	£0.99
Two hours using electric oven	£8.90
One hour using electric hob	£4.24
One hour spent vacuuming	£2.97
One hour using washing machine	£4.52
One hour using tumble dryer	£5.37
Two hours playing video games	£0.99
Total	£29.25

Customers will be rewarded with 50 per cent off all electricity between 11am and 4pm every Sunday until 31^st December. The discount is available to new and existing PeakSave customers, and all savings will appear as a credit on customers’ energy bills. There is no obligation to shift your normal activities on the scheme, but households can save more by doing more energy intensive tasks on a Sunday.

"The results from the summer have shown that half price electricity on Sunday is helping our customers save and it’s shifting usage away from peak times. We’d expect to see even more benefit in the winter months as home electricity use is generally higher."

Catherine O’Kelly, Managing Director of British Gas Energy at British Gas

PeakSave Sundays was launched to reward customers for better energy usage, supporting a greener energy supply. Typically, there is a greater amount of renewables available in the UK’s energy system on a Sunday because of lower demand from business and industry, which reduces the requirement for energy generated by fossil fuels.

Over 250,000 customers taking part in PeakSave Sundays have been paid almost £1.3 million so far for moving their activities to non-peak times and they have also contributed to a greener grid with 52 tonnes of Carbon emissions saved. They have shifted 1116 MWH (the equivalent of 135 days demand) of electricity to Sundays from other days of the week.

British Gas will also offer customers PeakSave Winter by taking part in the ESO Demand Flexibility Service. Last winter, British Gas customers received a combined total of more than £1.8m so there are even more ways for customers to save again this winter.

Catherine O’Kelly, Managing Director of British Gas Energy at British Gas, said: “With people spending time at home in the run up to the festive season, there are great opportunities for our customers to save on their energy bills whilst contributing to a greener grid.

“The results from the summer have shown that half price electricity on Sunday is helping our customers save and it’s shifting usage away from peak times. We’d expect to see even more benefit in the winter months as home electricity use is generally higher.

“As the momentum of demand flexibility initiatives builds, we hope to welcome even more customers to the PeakSave scheme to help create a more sustainable energy grid.”

British Gas customers will need to get a smart meter and sign up to half hourly reads to take part: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/peak-save.html

NOTES

About British Gas:

British Gas is Britain’s leading supplier of energy and services and the country’s biggest retailer of zero carbon electricity. We are part of Centrica, a company founded on a 200-year heritage of serving people. We provide energy and services to over 7 million UK homes and businesses, supported by around 7,500 highly trained engineers and technicians. We also offer a range of innovative products and services, including Hive and our on-demand digital trades service. Our purpose of helping Our purpose of helping customers live sustainably, simply and affordably drives our strategy and our People and Planet Plan.

About PeakSave:

British Gas ran a trial energy reduction scheme for this winter called ‘PeakSave Winter’ that took part in the National Grid ESO service trials. The trial tested the potential for reducing demand on the grid whilst helping customers save on bills by asking households to reduce their usage during National Grid’s ‘turn-down’ events. The initial scheme trial ran between 1^st December 2022 and 31^st March 2023 and now British Gas is launching new products to test the potential to save on bills and shift demand. In the original trial, British Gas revealed its customers received a combined total of more than £1.8 million and saved 147 MWh of energy – enough to power 750,000 homes for an hour. The savings to date equate to an average of £28.56 per customer.