Scotland Regional Winner, Heating Installer Awards 2026Highly Commended, Scottish Energy Efficiency Awards 2025
🎉 Scotland Regional Winner at the Heating Installer Awards 2026
Scotland Regional Winner, Heating Installer Awards 2026Highly Commended, Scottish Energy Efficiency Awards 2025
🎉 Scotland Regional Winner at the Heating Installer Awards 2026
Home / Blog / Intelligent Octopus Flux in Scotland
Intelligent Octopus Flux is an Octopus Energy tariff for homes with solar panels and a home battery: Octopus takes over the battery’s charging and discharging, and the price it pays for each unit you export matches the price it charges for each unit you import, hour by hour. On 14 October 2026 that meant 19.7p a unit outside the 4pm to 7pm peak and 26.2p inside it for South Scotland, with North Scotland a fraction higher, and none of it carried VAT this winter.
Sean Hogan · Heat Geek engineer · Updated October 2026 · 14 min read
Octopus prices Scotland as two separate regions, and both tariffs are variable, so the rates below come with a date and a region attached. The arithmetic matters more here than in the south of England. From November to January a Scottish array produces a small share of what it makes in June, so for a quarter of the year the battery earns its keep on the gap between cheap and expensive grid hours, and on 14 October that gap was nearly three times wider on plain Flux than on Intelligent Flux.
Octopus Flux came first. Octopus’s API lists it from 14 February 2023, and the Flux page describes it as an import and export tariff with three price periods: a cheap window from 2am to 5am, a peak from 4pm to 7pm, and a day rate for every other hour. Octopus fixes those windows to UK local time all year, so the clocks going back in October change nothing. You set the battery yourself, charging it in the cheap window and running the house (or exporting) through the peak.
Intelligent Octopus Flux followed on 13 July 2023, according to the same API. It has two price periods instead of three: a peak from 4pm to 7pm and one off-peak rate for the other 21 hours. The import and export rates match in each period, so a unit exported at noon earns what a unit bought at noon costs. You connect the battery to the Octopus app, and Octopus decides when it charges and when it empties.
Both tariffs are variable, with no exit fees and no tie-in, and both sat on Octopus’s list of available products on 14 October 2026, with no end date set.
Octopus’s Intelligent Flux FAQ sets out four conditions:
The second condition does the filtering. On 14 October 2026 the FAQ listed the current integrations as GivEnergy, Enphase, SolarEdge and Tesla, and named Hanchu ESS as coming soon. At sign-up the app asks you to log in to your battery maker’s account, and Octopus connects to the battery through it. A battery from any other maker cannot join, however good the battery is.
Two more limits catch people out. You can connect one battery only, so a second, unlinked battery stays under your own control. And Octopus allows one device per property on its intelligent tariffs, which means an electric car already registered on Intelligent Octopus Go and a battery on Intelligent Flux cannot both be registered at one address.
Plain Octopus Flux accepts far more batteries. Its page says it works with all solar and battery systems, and the panels need not have been installed by Octopus. You need a smart meter Octopus can read half-hourly (Octopus’s Flux page asks for a SMETS2 meter, or a SMETS1 made by Secure), Octopus import and export accounts, an export MPAN (Octopus will apply for one if you have none) and a copy of the MCS certificate for your installation before the switch completes. Octopus says the smart meter connection takes around 14 days after you switch.
We fit Fox ESS and EcoFlow PowerOcean batteries, and Aventus is an official EcoFlow partner. Neither make appeared on the Intelligent Flux list on 14 October 2026, so a battery we fit today joins plain Octopus Flux, or another tariff of your choosing. The solar battery storage systems we install across Scotland are set out on our battery page, with the inverter and backup options for each.
“Aventus Eco upgraded our battery storage quickly and really easily, and fixed problems our original installer had left. Nothing but praise for the company.”
Colin Moss, ★★★★★ Google Review
Octopus splits Scotland at the line between the two electricity network areas.
South Scotland (Octopus region N) covers SP Energy Networks’ area of the Central Belt and the south, so Glasgow, Edinburgh, Fife and the Borders.
North Scotland (region P) covers SSEN’s area, from Dundee, Perth and Angus up through Aberdeen, the Highlands and the islands.
Octopus’s rate checker works from your postcode, so check yours if you live near the boundary.
These are the unit rates Octopus published through its API for 14 October 2026, for customers paying by Direct Debit, rounded to one decimal place. The times are UK local time.
| Tariff and period | South Scotland, import / export | North Scotland, import / export |
|---|---|---|
| Octopus Flux, 02:00 to 05:00 | 14.3p / 4.4p | 14.6p / 4.7p |
| Octopus Flux, day (05:00 to 16:00 and 19:00 to 02:00) | 23.8p / 9.6p | 24.4p / 10.0p |
| Octopus Flux, peak 16:00 to 19:00 | 33.3p / 27.2p | 34.1p / 28.7p |
| Intelligent Octopus Flux, off-peak (all hours outside 16:00 to 19:00) | 19.7p / 19.7p | 20.2p / 20.2p |
| Intelligent Octopus Flux, peak 16:00 to 19:00 | 26.2p / 26.2p | 26.9p / 26.9p |
| Flexible Octopus import with Outgoing Octopus export (all hours) | 26.1p / 12.0p | 26.3p / 12.0p |
Source: Octopus Energy public API, product codes FLUX-IMPORT-23-02-14, FLUX-EXPORT-23-02-14, INTELLI-FLUX-IMPORT-23-07-14, VAR-22-11-01 and OUTGOING-VAR-24-10-26, regions N and P, read 14 October 2026. Intelligent Flux export equals import, per Octopus’s Intelligent Flux FAQ.
None of these prices includes VAT, because domestic electricity in Great Britain carries a 0% rate from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027 (HMRC Revenue and Customs Brief 10 (2026)). Octopus’s API shows the same figure with and without VAT for every rate above. The usual 5% rate returns on 1 April 2027 unless the government extends the relief.
The standing charge is the same on both Flux tariffs: 59.8p a day in South Scotland and 53.6p in North Scotland on 14 October. Octopus has already posted the next change, to 61.4p and 55.3p a day from 19 October 2026. North Scotland pays a little more per unit and less per day, so a low-use home in the north fares a little better on the standing charge than the unit rates suggest.
Octopus moves these rates with wholesale prices and gives notice before each change. When we pulled the figures on 14 October, Octopus had published Flux unit rates only as far as 15 October, so new unit rates may arrive alongside the 19 October standing charge. Use the table to compare the tariffs with each other on one date; for your own quote, enter your postcode on Octopus’s site on the day you switch.
Once your battery appears in the Devices tab of the Octopus app, Octopus runs it. The Intelligent Flux FAQ describes two phases.
Through the night and the day, the battery charges from whichever source is cheapest and greenest, your solar or the grid, and any spare solar on a sunny day goes out to the grid.
From 4pm to 7pm the battery discharges into the house and out to the grid, with Octopus aiming at the parts of that window where the grid needs it most.
Because import and export cost the same in each period, your bill comes out the same whether the battery filled from your roof at lunchtime or from the grid overnight while your solar went to the grid. Octopus matched the rates for that reason: it can pick the source without the choice landing on your bill.
The FAQ says Octopus holds batteries on the tariff at a 20% minimum, a level it says may vary through the year, and sets each battery’s charge targets to follow the seasons’ solar output. Octopus’s connection guide for one of the four listed makes adds that it aims to fill the battery to about 100% before 4pm, empties it to 20% during the peak, and does not let you adjust that reserve; connecting or disconnecting that make can take up to seven days. Unlike Intelligent Octopus Go, you cannot set your own charge level or a ready-by time. You can disconnect the battery in the app and take control back, though Octopus warns that a battery left disconnected for a long spell may lose you the tariff.
Octopus also publishes its own results for the tariff. It says that between June 2024 and May 2025, 34% of Intelligent Octopus Flux customers earned more from exports than they paid for imports, and the top 12% covered their whole bill, standing charge included, and made £314 or more on top. Those are Octopus’s figures across all its Intelligent Flux customers, with no Scottish breakdown, and a roof in Scotland generates less than the same roof in southern England.
On plain Flux the schedule is yours. Octopus’s advice is to charge the battery between 2am and 5am and discharge it between 4pm and 7pm. For an EcoFlow PowerOcean, EcoFlow’s app has a time-of-use mode, and EcoFlow’s own UK case study of a PowerOcean home on a time-of-use tariff shows its Intelligent Mode charging from the grid between 1am and 5am, holding back from a full charge to leave room for solar, and running the house from the battery through the late-afternoon peak. (EcoFlow’s app page notes that its advanced features work on specific devices only and points owners to the EcoFlow app to check theirs.)
“Aventus Eco installed solar panels and a battery and all went like clockwork. Now running virtually all day on a few £ of off peak electricity (Octopus) and the rest is solar feeding into the battery. Very pleased with the result and the thorough job done by Aventus Eco.”
Paul Prior, ★★★★★ Google Review
The table compares two illustrative days in South Scotland using the 14 October 2026 rates above. The kilowatt-hour quantities are assumptions picked to show where each tariff earns; your own figures depend on your array, your battery and your household. Battery charging losses are left out, and the totals use Octopus’s unrounded rates.
| Tariff | Day A: 6 kWh of surplus solar exported during daylight, outside 4pm to 7pm | Day B: 8 kWh charged from the grid at the cheapest rate and used in the house from 4pm to 7pm, instead of buying at the peak rate |
|---|---|---|
| Octopus Flux | 6 × 9.6p = 57p | 8 × (33.3p − 14.3p) = £1.52 saved |
| Intelligent Octopus Flux | 6 × 19.7p = £1.18 | 8 × (26.2p − 19.7p) = 52p saved |
| Flexible import with Outgoing Octopus export | 6 × 12.0p = 72p | Flat rate all day, so nothing saved |
The same two days in North Scotland come out at 60p, £1.21 and 72p for Day A, and £1.56, 54p and nothing for Day B.
Day A is a summer day with the battery already full. Intelligent Flux pays twice what plain Flux pays for that midday export, and beats Outgoing Octopus’s flat 12p as well. Day B is a Scottish January, when the panels contribute little and the battery fills from the grid in the small hours. Plain Flux’s 19p gap between 2am and the evening peak is worth nearly three times Intelligent Flux’s 6.5p gap.
Ordinary grid use tips the balance back. Every unit your house buys outside the peak and outside the 2am to 5am window costs 4.1p less on Intelligent Flux (19.7p against 23.8p in South Scotland), and a household that runs a heat pump or cooks through the day buys plenty of those units in winter.
The Smart Export Guarantee column stands for a household that stays on a standard import tariff and takes a flat export rate. It suits solar without a battery, which neither Flux tariff accepts. Our guide to the Smart Export Guarantee in Scotland compares the export rates on offer and the paperwork to claim them.
Intelligent Flux suits a household whose battery already appears on Octopus’s list, with a large array that exports a lot from April to September, and no wish to manage charge times. Matched rates make every exported unit worth the off-peak import price, which on 14 October was 19.7p in South Scotland against 12p on Outgoing Octopus.
Plain Flux suits any battery make, including the Fox ESS and EcoFlow batteries we install, and it pays best in the months when the battery fills from the grid. In Scotland that covers November to February at the least. It asks you to set the two windows in the battery’s app and keep them matched to Octopus’s times.
Glasgow homes sit in Octopus’s South Scotland region, along with the Central Belt towns we cover. If you are planning panels and a battery together there, our solar panel installation in Glasgow page shows how we size the array and storage as one system.
Edinburgh falls in the same region and the same rates. Our battery storage service in Edinburgh covers battery installation in and around the capital.
Panels without a battery cannot join either Flux tariff, so the first decision is whether storage makes sense for your house at all. If your array is already on the roof, our page on adding a battery to existing solar panels explains how we approach a retrofit, inverter included.
A household with an electric car on Intelligent Octopus Go faces the one-device rule. Octopus lets you register one device per property on its intelligent tariffs, so the car and an Intelligent Flux battery cannot both join. Plain Flux has no such rule, and Octopus says EV drivers are welcome on it.
“After having several companies provide quotes for solar panels for my husband and me, Aventus ECO was by far the best.”
Kimberly Sloof, ★★★★★ Google Review
The right tariff for a Scottish solar home comes down to three things: the battery on the wall, how much the household uses after dark in winter, and how much the array exports in summer. A £0 survey reads your bills and your roof, sizes the battery to your evening use, and shows which version of Flux, or which export tariff, that system can join.
It is an Octopus Energy import and export tariff for homes with solar panels and a home battery. Octopus controls the battery through its app, charging when prices are low and discharging from 4pm to 7pm, and the export rate matches the import rate in every period.
On 14 October 2026 Octopus listed GivEnergy, Enphase, SolarEdge and Tesla Powerwall as its current integrations, with Hanchu ESS coming soon. Fox ESS and EcoFlow batteries were not on the list, so in Scotland, as elsewhere in Great Britain, owners of those batteries can join plain Octopus Flux instead.
On 14 October 2026, South Scotland paid 19.7p a unit off-peak and 26.2p from 4pm to 7pm, and North Scotland paid 20.2p and 26.9p, with export at the same rates. The standing charge was 59.8p a day in the south and 53.6p in the north, with Octopus’s posted rise to 61.4p and 55.3p a day from 19 October 2026.
It pays more for daytime solar exports and charges less for ordinary daytime use. Plain Flux gives a bigger gap between its 2am to 5am rate and its evening peak, which earns more in a Scottish winter when the battery fills from the grid. Your battery brand may settle it, since Intelligent Flux accepts four makes.
No. Both Flux tariffs require solar panels and a home battery. A Scottish home with panels and no battery can take a flat export rate instead, such as Outgoing Octopus at 12p a unit on 14 October 2026.
You keep the generation payments. Octopus says joining Flux means opting out of deemed export permanently and taking the Flux export rate for every unit your smart meter records instead.
Yes. Octopus Flux and Intelligent Octopus Flux both appeared on Octopus Energy’s list of available products on 14 October 2026, with no end date set.
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