Octopus Energy launched the Octopus Nook battery range at the Energy Tech Summit in London. The Octopus Nook battery is built as two formats, so renters and homeowners are not forced into the same installation.
Greg Jackson said home batteries are “a brilliant piece of tech and one of the smartest ways to cut energy bills right now.” He added that Octopus batteries are “a big step” in the company’s mission to help people tap into the cheapest energy possible.
Octopus Nook Cube and Nook Collosus
The Octopus Nook Cube is a 2kWh battery about the size of a shoebox. It plugs into a standard socket and is designed for renters and people living in flats. Customers will control it through the Octopus app, and they can add more cubes until storage reaches 10.5kWh.
The Nook Collosus is a wall-mounted 5kWh battery that needs an engineer to fit it. It can be stacked to 30kWh, which makes it the option for households that can handle a permanent system and want more storage headroom.
Octopus Energy and Tesla
The launch puts Octopus Energy into direct competition with Tesla on home storage, even though Octopus Energy already sells solar panels and batteries from other brands, including Tesla. That makes the new range less like a side project and more like Octopus Energy trying to own the customer relationship from tariff to battery.
Both systems work with solar panels. Both also come with a 12-year warranty. Customers will also be able to pair the batteries with Octopus smart tariffs, which Octopus Energy says have already saved customers almost £1bn by shifting energy use away from more expensive times of day.
UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain
The batteries are due to go on sale next year in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Octopus has not yet revealed prices, and that is the figure buyers will need before they can judge whether a 2kWh plug-in unit or a 30kWh stacked system makes sense for their home.
Jackson’s own pitch is blunt: “You can stack up to five of them to get 10 kilowatt hours, even if you don't have solar panels, they'll pay for themselves in two or three years, and thereafter just keep saving money, because they'll be able to use the cheapest electricity on the grid to charge up, and you'll be able to use it in your home, and if you do have solar panels, it should be an absolute no-bra”.
