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Bills · 8 Apr 2026

Your smart meter is already watching.
Here is how to make it pay.

68% of UK homes now have a smart meter. Most people use it to check their usage. Almost nobody uses it to earn money. That gap is what FlexMyPower is built on.

68% have smart meter ~5% use it actively opportunity

Most smart meters are sitting idle as earning tools

📟 What does a smart meter actually do?

It sends your half-hourly energy usage data to your supplier automatically. No more estimated bills. No more meter readings.

But it also does something most people do not know about. It sends that same data to the National Grid. So the grid knows, in real time, how much electricity every street in the country is using.

That data is what makes demand flexibility possible. The grid can see which households shifted their usage. and which ones did not. and pay accordingly.

💷 So why are most people not getting paid?

Because getting paid requires being enrolled in a flexibility programme. and until recently, those programmes were only open to households already on special smart tariffs.

That changed in August 2025. A rule update called P483 removed the requirement to be on a specific tariff. Any household with a smart meter and a compatible device can now participate.

Most energy suppliers have not told their customers this. We did not expect them to.

🔌 What devices does it work with?

EV chargers, heat pumps, hot water tanks, home batteries, and smart plugs. If a device uses a meaningful amount of electricity and has a degree of scheduling flexibility, it can participate.

You do not need to buy new equipment. You do not need to switch supplier. You just need a smart meter and at least one of the above.

The average UK household with an EV and a heat pump is looking at £415 to £935 total value this year. Earnings from the grid, plus bill savings from smart timing.

Making an appliance visible to the grid

A smart meter tells your supplier what you used. It does not let anyone shift when you use it. That takes a switch.

Tapo P110 smart plug (2-pack)
£13.32 · 4.6★ · 53,155 reviews
Measures the energy going through it, and can be switched remotely. The cheapest way to turn a dumb appliance into something the grid will pay for.
£19/yr
on the grid
View →
tado Smart Thermostat X starter kit
£108.32 · 4.4★
Lets your heating be nudged by an hour when the grid is tight, without you noticing and without you freezing.
£95/yr
on the grid
View →

Some links here are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through one we may earn a small commission, at no cost to you. We only list kit that actually works with FlexMyPower. The commission is trivial. The reason we care is that these devices are what let the grid pay you in the first place.

See what your devices could earn →

Written by Hoesna Mahmood, founder of FlexMyPower. Published 8 Apr 2026.

FlexMyPower pays UK households to shift when they use energy. Any tariff, any supplier, no switching. More articles.

© 2026 FlexMyPower Ltd · Companies House 17138164 · Not an energy supplier.