18 July, 2025

A ‘bruising’ debate has been simmering away in the energy industry for the last three years. This reached its denouement last week, when the UK Government decided not to go ahead with proposals for zonal pricing.

The idea behind zonal pricing is for each of the seven regions in Great Britain to have their own wholesale energy price, rather than their being one fixed for the whole of the UK, with pricing set according to the balance between supply and demand. The debate has been very interesting in its own right. There’s a clear need to ensure electricity is generated where it’s needed and put an end to practices such as turning off wind turbines in Scotland when it’s really windy because it exceeds immediate demand and can’t be transported (see more here). However, there’s uncertainty around whether zonal pricing would actually reduce costs to consumers.

We’ll leave the nuanced debate to the energy experts. But one thing that did catch our interest was Octopus Energy’s response to the decision. Octopus is a big proponent of zonal pricing and in response to the government announcement, it launched an advertising campaign with the message: “we’ll keep fighting for you” and a challenge to the Government to ensure that any energy reform delivers the advantages that zonal energy could.

The campaign aims to be educational too: the company’s new ‘Wasted Wind’ ticker reveals, in real time, how much money is wasted by the UK having an energy system that can’t keep up with the clean power it generates.

It’s inspiring to see a company of Octopus’ size campaigning like this, especially on an issue that’s at the heart of a recent cost of living crisis and the transition to net zero, as well as central to their business. Creating the infrastructure for a sustainable society will require action from all players in the system, and we’re pleased to see Octopus taking part.

By Patrick Bapty