Octopus Energy takes on fleet electrification

Octopus Energy Services (OES) is at the forefront of transforming the energy industry with a commitment to sustainability and innovation.

Beyond the technology they install, OES has made a tangible impact on the environment by replacing diesel vans with electric ones, significantly reducing their carbon footprint. With each installation, OES isn't just helping customers save on energy bills but also contributing to a sustainable, low-carbon future, ensuring that the energy revolution reaches every doorstep.

But how exactly do you manage an electric fleet of over 2,000? Well, that's where Octopus Fleet comes in.

In 2024, we sat down with Octopus Energy Services CEO, John Szymik, to find out more about OES and how Electroverse helps.

More recently, we caught up with Tom Hammond, Head of Fleet Operations to get an update on the fleet electrification of OES, and how they are getting on with Octopus Fleet.  

Let's get plugged in…

2024 Interview with John Szymik 

Octopus Energy Services plays a huge role at Octopus Energy - and with smart meters having an instrumental part in the past few years, how do you see smart meters contributing to a greener energy future?

Smart meters are a huge part of what we do! They enable customers to better understand their energy consumption and, therefore, enable Octopus to offer customers smart tariffs that better suit their needs. For example, if a customer wants to charge an EV at home, we can offer smart tariffs to ensure they get the cheapest and greenest electricity to charge their vehicles with.

They facilitate smart tariffs which encourage people to use energy at times of day when it’s cheaper, which also tends to correlate with when it’s greener (when there is more renewable energy on the grid). It also allows us to have further insight into how they use their energy - rewarding customers when they’re utilising green grid energy. Adapting demand, creating storage solutions and increasing the amount of renewable energy generation is what will lead to a net-zero energy system.

Looking ahead, what are the biggest opportunities and challenges for OES in the next 5-10 years, especially considering the evolving energy landscape and regulatory changes?

Scale. The increase in scale when it comes to OES is one of our most exciting progressions, but it’s also one of our biggest challenges. Whilst OES grows rapidly, so does the want for smart meters and more on-the-ground, environmental tech! We need thousands of talented people to increase the rollout of smart green tech such as solar, battery storage, heat pumps, EV chargers and more. The main focus at the moment is on how we will recruit, train and continually develop these green-skilled octo-engineers.

Back in 2021, it was announced that the first 23 electric vans had already hit the streets - how many electric vans does OES have in 2024?

As of 2024, OES has 1,600 electric vans on the roads! Increasing by 1,577 vans in 3 years.

Were there any challenges to transitioning Octopus Energy Services’ fleet to electric?

The main challenge was that commercial vehicles tend to have a reasonable range for in-town work; where the travel distances are shorter, but were lacking in range for longer journeys. However, the public charging infrastructure is getting better all the time, so it’s perfectly feasible to run an electric van, even with slightly longer than usual travel distances, you just need to plan ahead when it comes to charging.

Other than this, the main challenge is the number of engineers who don’t have off-road parking for overnight charging. We are looking at solutions for that as it is a huge opportunity to be solved and innovative products such as Kerbo Charge could well be the answer.

How has Octopus Fleet* helped with streamlining Octopus Energy Services’ public charging needs?

It gives our drivers a single card to use across a myriad of charging provider networks, hugely reducing the effort involved with having accounts for each of the providers. As a business, it enables us to see all our public charging in one place/on one dashboard, which makes management far easier.

What’s the most valuable feature in the Octopus Fleet* platform for fleet admins?

*formerly Electroverse for Business

I have two:

• The user interface - it's incredibly friendly and makes managing an electric vehicle fleet of 1,600 very easy. Every important piece of information is displayed on the dashboard & if I need more, it doesn't take much to find it.

• The reporting function - unlike similar products, after a driver completes a charging session, the data appears in the reporting function almost immediately. This means we have up-to-date data as and when we need it! 

How have OES fleet drivers found using Octopus Electroverse to charge on the public network?

Does what it says on the tin - one card that works across multiple platforms and a very useful app to help drivers locate chargers and plan their routes accordingly. 

2026 Interview with Tom Hammond 

How many vans do OES have now? 

We have a total of 2,548 vans of which 2,444 are battery electric vehicles and 106 are still ICE vehicles. So, we have a total updated rate of 96.5% of the fleet is battery electric vehicles. Our goal for the future is to electrify the total fleet as soon as and when we can. 

How have your fleet drivers found charging under the Octopus Fleet platform? 

As far as Electroverse use is concerned, all of our engineers with battery electric vehicles have RFID cards that they can utilize through public charge points.

Electroverse have made leaps and bounds certainly over the last 12 months of signing up more vendors onto the Electroverse platform. So this time 12 months ago it was a little bit hit and miss. Sometimes Electroverse would work on some public charges, other times we'd have to revert to company credit card spend.

But now that Octopus Fleet has signed up more and more like Gridserve and others, the coverage is a lot better for our engineers and also with the payment card, even if we found an obscure EV charger, that didn't accept the Electroverse app, we could use the fuel cards to pay via the Visa payment card

As always, there's a few teething problems with that at the end of the day, but it looks like the fleet guys and girls are setting up the app fairly well and managing it operationally.

Charging is one of the big concerns for fleet managers looking to electrify their fleet - how are you combatting range fears with your drivers? 

We do encourage our engineers to charge at home as much as possible where they can because it reduces downtime during the operational day. It means they don't need to stop and recharge during the day. They do it at home whilst they're asleep.

We're also doing some weird and wonderful things as well. When customers have EV chargers at home addresses and they're with Octopus, we actually plug our vans into a customer's address and charge it whilst they're on site, and then we give them the money back through one of the tariffs. 

We're looking at creative ways to charge the vehicle whilst reducing engineer downtime. 

Unfortunately, some of our drivers don't have home chargers. 

1. Some people live in terrace houses where they park on the street so they can't get the charging cable. 

2. Some people live in rented accommodation where they don't have the landlord's permission to install an EV charger.

For these engineers we allow more flexibility by giving them time to access public charging points and also providing the knowledge around the infrastructure, so they know where to find a charging point when they can find it to reduce the downtime on the operational day and get them home earlier.

What challenges do you see on the road to fleet electrification? 

At OES, we're striving for 100% of our vehicles to be EV. But it's a little bit out of our control. We're waiting for the updates in technology and for OEMs to bring out new models with a better range and a higher weight capacity when they start to come through. 

The reason why we're not any higher than we want to be is more through limitations in technology. The leftover ICE vehicles are split into two camps:  

1. Logistics vehicles and delivery vehicles - there just isn't a solution as far as electrification for the range and payload we need to carry to deliver heat pumps and solar panels. So we're sticking with ice vehicles for the time being. 

2. Infrastructure - for engineers who work isolated areas like the Scottish Highlands. The tech is not quite there yet as far as what the infrastructure looks like where they operate.

What do you see for the future of fleet electrification?

In the world of tech, there are some positives in the pipeline. Reputable manufacturers  are bringing out new van models with an increased electric range. There's lots of new manufacturers coming into the market too such as BYD that are offering something different. 

For many the transition is mostly a change of mindset. A lot of these people, especially logistics drivers, they've been driving trucks and vans for years and years, and they get another card. They don't really mind what it's called.

 We are continuing to do what we do at OES though, which is electrify the whole fleet and make sure that we're not contributing to the carbon burden at Octopus.

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