What, Who, How?

Switching to Social Energy

Once your battery is installed you’ll need to sign up to Social Energy via the app for grid balancing payments. This is easy to do from within the app, it should take no longer than 5 minutes and we will do the rest from here.

The Social Energy app is now available to download for smartphones and tablets on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

Energy bills

Social Energy are not an energy supplier so your energy bills will remain with your chosen energy supplier. 

You are likely to use more energy in the winter and less in the summer, this is for a few reasons:

• You’re likely to generate less solar in the autumn and winter months when the days are shorter and the sun is shining a lot less than the spring and summer months.
• The weather is usually colder in the autumn and winter, which means that your bills during this period are likely to be higher as you have your heating on a lot more. The days are also shorter, so you tend to use more electricity lighting your home.

You may generate more energy than you use in your home during peak summer months. The great news is that any excess will be stored in your battery. 

In the winter you will generate less solar energy and also use more energy in your home.  This may mean your bills could be bigger in the winter than during summer and this can come as a surprise, especially as the season changes.

It is completely normal to see a change in your bills with the change in season across the year.

Will I still have to pay an electricity bill?

Whilst your bill will reduce with your new battery you will still receive a bill from your energy supplier.

Your bill will include a daily standing charge and a cost for every unit of electricity you use from the grid.

Benefits & Savings

We don't earn anything until you do, so you can be sure we will be working hard to get your benefits unlocked as soon as possible.

As soon as you have your battery and hub installed you will start earning straight away. You will be benefiting from your solar generation, storing and consuming your own energy which means a reduction on your bills.

As soon as you sign up to the Social Energy app, we will start to test your battery and get it ready to join the community of batteries providing grid balancing. This can take 90 days before you can start to earn grid balancing credits.

Export

Social Energy do not pay you for export. In order to get paid for the energy you send to the grid, you will need to sign up for a SEG tariff. You can view a list of suppliers available to pay you here.

Credits

As long as you are taking part in grid balancing and there is a stable internet connection to your battery system you will receive credits paid into your bank account each month. We will pay you for your battery services the month after you have taken part in the behaviour. For example, behaviour taken part in during the month of September will be paid to you in October.

Grid Balancing

Social Energy are the only supplier to offer credits for balancing the National Grid.  Once you switch your energy to SE we’ll get your battery in to our pre-qualification process. This can take up to 90 days. Once testing’s successful we’ll be able to enter you into the next available tender.

This may be straight after your 90 day qualification, it may be ahead of schedule and within your 90 days, or it may take a while longer, it really depends on the market and when the tender is won.  Don’t worry about any of this as its all factored into your savings calculator.  As soon as you’re in a ‘tender’ you’ll be earning money and this will be paid as a credit four times a year. 

It’s a common misconception that grid balancing is a one off occurrence.  It's actually happening all the time.  This means your battery will never fully charge or discharge. The reason for this is to ensure there is enough space in your battery to be able to charge up from the grid or always ensuring there is enough energy left in your battery to pass back to the grid when needed.  The clever AI does all this and then lets you use the rest of the energy in the most cost effective way.

By optimising your battery to never get totally empty or full up, it also helps to improve the life of your battery.