Households could get free electricity for doing washing on sunny weekends

Households and businesses could get free or cheaper electricity from their energy company for running appliances during periods of excess supply, such as sunny weekends.

Until now, providers have offered incentives, such as cheaper rates, for customers in Britain to shift their electricity use outside of peak times.

But now they can also encourage people to increase their use when "weather conditions result in excess supply", the National Energy System Operator (NESO) said.

Its updated Demand Flexibility Service was approved by the industry regulator Ofgem at the end of March, and NESO said it would ensure the system is resilient over the summer, and avoid surplus power being wasted.

Electricity demand is lower in the summer months when the weather is warmer and the days longer, while solar power generation is higher.

NESO said its research indicated low demand was "increasingly driven by weather patterns", while the growth of "smaller, local electricity generators" is also reducing reliance on large power stations.

Periods of surplus electricity are becoming more common, it said.

Renewable energy produced a record amount of electricity in Great Britain last year, with wind the biggest single renewable source. Solar-powered electricity rose by nearly a third on 2024 levels.

2025 was the UK's sunniest year on record, and it was also a record year for rooftop solar panels, with about 250,000 new small-scale installations reported to the Microgeneration Certification Scheme.

The updated scheme will enable customers to be rewarded for running appliances such as washing machines and dishwashers, and charging electric vehicles, when more green energy is being generated and demand is low, such as on weekends or Bank Holidays.

It is open to households with a smart meter, whose suppliers are participating.

NESO will tell energy companies what time in the day it wants the scheme to run.

It will then pay providers if they are able to ramp up or reduce demand for that period, who can decide how to pass this money onto customers.

Rewards will vary, and could include customers being offered free or cheaper electricity at certain times, or points that could be converted into gift cards.

It can vary by area - so customers in one part of the country could be encouraged to increase use, while others in a different location could be incentivised to curb consumption.

Companies that have signed up to the scheme so far include British Gas, Equiwatt and Octopus Energy, NESO said.

NESO said: "The complexity of operating the system at low demand is increasing, and we may need to use more of our tools, and use them more often, than in previous summers."

This may also include issuing rare notices to power stations telling them they may need to turn down output to ensure safety in periods of low demand.

On roughly a third of days in 2025, at least half of Britain's electricity came from renewables, according to BBC analysis of NESO data.

But the British electricity grid often still leans heavily on fossil fuel gas.

Gas-fired power stations help balance the electricity system by rapidly increasing output when renewable generation is intermittent.

National Gas said it expected Britain to have enough gas for the summer - primarily from the UK Continental Shelf and Norway.

Its director of energy systems and resilience, Glenn Bryn-Jacobsen, said: "While the situation in the Middle East has understandably raised questions about Britain's gas supplies, our forecasts indicate the market has the capacity to deliver sufficient supply to meet demand this summer."