Energy on Subscription can accelerate the UK’s path to net zero
By upgrading energy with the kind of subscription model we already use for services like phones and broadband we can help people decarbonise their homes.
The UK is primed for an energy revolution.
According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), offshore and onshore wind are set to be more than 60% cheaper than natural gas in 2025, and we now have access to domestic technologies with the potential to decarbonise every household in the country. The challenge is getting clean electricity and the devices that can make the most of it into people's homes.
Despite a majority of the UK public supporting net zero, the combined upfront cost of green devices such as solar panels, heat pumps, and battery storage can make it difficult for many to play an active role, and especially for those on lower incomes. That’s why the UK’s retail energy market needs a new tool that can deliver green technologies and electricity to ordinary Britons’ homes right away. This is exactly what we’re proposing with Energy on Subscription
How Energy on Subscription can put green technologies in people’s homes
Energy on Subscription is our plan for making the heat and power solutions of the future available to UK households today. It works like this:
- An energy supplier covers the upfront cost of upgrading a customer’s home with a heat pump, solar PV, and battery storage.
- In combination with a smart meter and Time of Use tariff that make it possible to buy and store electricity when it’s cheapest, and decide the best times to use a heat pump, these devices can save the customer hundreds of pounds a year.
- Those savings go towards a subscription fee which over time pays for the initial installation costs as well as the customer’s ongoing electricity use.
Focusing on just one aspect of Energy on Subscription’s offer – battery storage – a domestic battery currently costs roughly £3,000 to install, but with a Time of Use tariff can save a UK household between £250 and £300 a year. Over the average battery’s 20-year lifespan, this amounts to up to £6,000 in savings – roughly double the initial cost of installation.
Our vision is that these and other savings from solar PV, ultra-efficient heat pumps, and smarter tariffs will make a subscription model cheaper each month than customers’ current energy bills, with the significant additional benefit of helping them considerably reduce their household emissions by upgrading their homes with green technology at no extra cost.
Roughly one fifth of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions currently come from residential buildings, and if we’re to achieve net zero this will need to be significantly reduced. By removing the financial hurdles people face when trying to upgrade their homes and reduce their carbon footprint, a model such as Energy on Subscription can massively accelerate the process. We believe this could be applied to existing home owners, new builds, and the rental market, ensuring no one is left behind in the energy transition.
Making Energy on Subscription a reality
Many of the conditions for making Energy on Subscription a reality are already in place: Millions of UK homes now have smart meters that will help them benefit from Time of Use tariffs, renewable electricity is cheaper than it’s ever been, and complementary green technologies such as solar, storage, and heat pumps have become relatively affordable and compact enough to make them viable for domestic use.
To ease the way for this and other forms of market innovation in the years to come, however, we want to encourage and work with government to make green upgrades even easier. This could be done by offering green financing grants and guarantees to lenders, by updating the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) to allow for third party ownership of devices such as heat pumps, and by otherwise incentivising suppliers and customers to put green solutions in people’s homes sooner rather than later.
However we get there, we look forward to collaborating with Government on bringing innovative new solutions to the retail energy sector and reducing the UK’s household emissions, because we know it’s on us to take action today and make new energy work for the future.
Learn more about Energy on Subscription and other benefits of putting green technologies in people homes in our recent blog: Upgrading homes to support the energy transition