Equiwatt: Energy Saving App and Flexibility Rewards

Equiwatt is a UK-based climate technology company that pays households rewards for cutting their electricity use at peak times, through a free app¹. The app connects to your electricity smart meter, and when the grid is under strain it runs short events, called equivents, in which everyone signed up is asked to use less power than a personal forecast for their home. If you beat your forecast, you earn points, which you redeem in the app's own Gift Store¹. Participation can be manual, by switching off appliances and shifting use to other times of day, or automated by connecting compatible smart plugs and electric vehicles¹.

The model is part of a wider shift in how the UK grid is balanced. Energy flexibility schemes of this kind reward people for changing the times when they use the most electricity, and customers sign up through participating energy suppliers, aggregators and apps². Equiwatt sits in that last category: an independent app, not a supplier, not a tariff, and not a charge on your bill. What it asks for in return is access to the half-hourly data your smart meter produces, because without that data there is no way to measure whether you actually shifted your usage.

Understanding equiwatt and its app

Equiwatt describes itself as a community-powered Virtual Power Plant: many small reductions in household demand, added together, behave like a single block of supply the grid can call on¹. The mechanism is the forecast. The app builds a picture of your normal usage from your meter data, then during an equivent your job is to come in under it. Users who successfully reduce their energy usage and beat their forecast earn points based on how much energy and CO2 they helped to save¹.

Two things follow from that design. First, the reward is for measured reduction, not for signing up, so a home that changes nothing earns nothing. Second, the whole thing rests on the meter connection: the app needs your electricity smart meter data flowing to verify each result⁴. You can take part by powering down appliances and shifting usage to other times of day, or automate it by connecting compatible smart home devices and electric vehicles that respond on your behalf¹.

The app has grown additional features over time. In December 2024 equiwatt launched PowerSmart events for NESO's Demand Flexibility Service, alongside multi-event notifications, expanded eGift rewards and smart device automations for all users. In March 2026 it added Streaks and Entries, two further ways to earn from grid balancing events, while ending prize draw entries for simply selecting appliances, which now require delivery of an energy shifting forecast instead. A beta energy tariff integration launched in June 2026 lets users view their rates, contract details and time-of-use rates in the app, and AlphaESS battery owners with an export MPAN can earn export rewards.

Free to join, but the smart meter is the gate

The app itself costs nothing: equiwatt's own description is of a FREE app helping households earn rewards for reducing peak time energy usage and carbon emissions¹. Smart meter installation is also free, arranged through your energy supplier⁷. The real eligibility test is the meter, not the money.

To earn points you need a compatible smart meter connected to the equiwatt app⁴. The same requirement sits behind every scheme of this type: a smart meter working in smart mode and sending half-hourly readings is required to take part in energy flexibility², and half-hourly data is the entry condition for time-of-use tariffs generally⁸. Comparable schemes spell out the same conditions in their rules, including a connected electricity smart meter providing half-hourly readings, living at the registered address, and a valid UK bank account⁹.

Equiwatt's own guidance on compatibility is date-based: if your meter was installed in the last few years it will likely be compatible, while meters installed before 2018 may not be⁴. If you do not yet have a smart meter, your supplier can arrange one at no cost⁷, and there is no obligation to accept one, though without it neither equiwatt nor any similar scheme is open to you¹⁰.

Connecting your meter: methods, verification and keeping the link alive

Connection is done in the app, and the key identifier is your MPAN, the meter point number from your electricity bill. The process has not always been smooth: in January 2026 equiwatt confirmed a bug in which the MPAN entry was missing from the connection flow, fixed it, and asked affected users to email a copy of their bill so the meter could be added manually. A new app version released on 30 January 2026 added a manual MPAN entry option, resolving the problem.

Verification matters because rewards depend on measured data. Points for participating in an event appear within 24 to 48 hours as pending⁴, which is the window in which your actual half-hourly usage is checked against your forecast. If the data never arrives, neither do the points.

Connections can also lapse. Some electricity meters have an expiry date¹¹, and consent to share meter data is not open-ended, so an app may report that a meter connection has expired and ask you to reconnect. When that happens the fix is to remove the meter from the app and add it again, re-entering the MPAN. The same remove-and-re-add route is what updates your registered address, since schemes of this type require you to live at the address the connected meter serves⁹. A related failure mode appeared in June 2025, when a user reported no smart meter data appearing in the app after 22 June despite months of successful connection, a reminder that the data chain from meter to app has several links and any of them can break.

Earning and spending points through PowerDOWN and powerSmart events

Equiwatt runs two kinds of event. PowerDOWN events are its own equivents: timed reductions in usage, verified against your forecast, with points earned based on how much energy and CO2 your reduction saved¹. PowerSmart events, launched in December 2024, are equiwatt's route into NESO's Demand Flexibility Service, the national scheme under which the grid operator pays for reductions at times of system stress.

In both cases the earning logic is the same. You reduce usage during the event window, by powering down appliances and shifting consumption to other times of day, or by letting connected devices and EVs automate the shift¹. Points land as pending within 24 to 48 hours⁴ and are redeemed in the in-app Gift Store¹, which offers eGift rewards among its options. Since March 2026 there are also Streaks and Entries into weekly and monthly prize draws for taking part in grid balancing events.

What the points are worth in pounds varies with how many events run, how big your shiftable load is, and how well you beat your forecast, so no fixed annual figure can be stated. What can be said is the structural point: the reward is capped by how much peak usage your home can genuinely move.

What earning potential actually depends on

Equiwatt does not publish a guaranteed annual return, and any figure a household sees quoted elsewhere should be treated as a best case built on frequent events and a large shiftable load. The honest framing is that flexibility income scales with three things: how often events run, how much electricity your home can shift out of the window, and whether that shifting is automated so it actually happens.

The wider evidence on household flexibility gives a sense of the ceiling. Energy Saving Trust research on combining smart tariffs with low-carbon home technologies found savings of up to around £800 a year are possible¹², though that figure covers tariff optimisation and self-consumption across a fully equipped home, not app rewards alone. Comparable free apps such as ivie also reward engagement with points rather than cash¹³. The practical lesson is that a home with an EV, a battery or a wet appliance cycle that can move to another hour earns far more from any flexibility scheme than a home with nothing shiftable, whatever the app.

Smart plugs: Kasa HS110 and KP115 only

Automation is where smart plugs come in, and here equiwatt is unusually strict. Only the HS110 and KP115 Energy Monitoring smart plugs are compatible with the equiwatt app⁵. Other makes or models of TP-Link smart plug cannot currently be connected to automate participation via a Kasa account⁵, and a staff reply in February 2026 confirmed the same limit from the other direction: only HS110 and KP115 are supported, and Tapo plugs are not.

The setup order matters. The plug must first be set up in the Kasa Smart app, plugged in and connected to your home WiFi network, before you add it to equiwatt⁵. Once linked, any additional compatible plugs added to your Kasa account sync with equiwatt automatically⁵. Smart plugs themselves are simple devices: they plug into an existing wall socket, your normal appliances plug into them, and they are controlled from an app on a phone or tablet¹⁴.

The integration has a troubled history worth knowing before buying plugs. Users reported Kasa plugs repeatedly going offline in the equiwatt app while working normally in the Kasa app from March 2025, with equiwatt confirming in May 2025 that its engineering team was investigating. A bug was found and resolved by June 2025, with users advised to disconnect and reconnect their Kasa accounts, and further batches of Kasa issues were fixed by July 2025. On Tapo, equiwatt ruled out direct integration in November 2024, pointing users to its Open API or to IFTTT as the workaround, after earlier stating the Kasa-side blocker persisted and IFTTT control of Tapo plugs would leave beta.

EVs, batteries and chargers

Electric vehicles are the biggest single shiftable load most homes will ever have, and equiwatt supports them directly. For vehicles on its supported list, connection is in-app. For an electric vehicle currently not supported, equiwatt provides a manual route¹⁵:

1. Go to the 'Manage' tab of the app and select 'Add Electric Vehicle'¹⁵
2. Scroll to the bottom of the list and select 'Can't find your EV?'¹⁵
3. In the 'Add your EV manually' screen, enter the brand, model and year of your EV and click 'Continue'¹⁵

Battery owners gained a further option with the June 2026 beta tariff integration: AlphaESS battery owners with an export MPAN can earn export rewards through the app. Beyond the app, the physical side of connecting low-carbon technology has its own rules. Installing any low carbon technology such as an EV charger or solar panels requires approval from the local network operator, and EV chargers and other low-carbon technologies can push a home's electricity demand above the available supply, which may require an upgrade. Network operators run services for exactly this, covering EV chargers, heat pumps and other high-demand equipment.

DFS participation and the one-provider rule

The Demand Flexibility Service is the national framework these events hang off. It rewards people for changing the times when they use the most electricity³, and it reached scale quickly: DFS incentivised 1.6 million households and businesses in winter 2022/23⁶. Customers sign up through participating energy suppliers, aggregators and apps², and equiwatt's PowerSmart events are one such route, launched in December 2024.

The rule that catches most people out is exclusivity. You can only be registered with one NESO DFS scheme at a time¹⁶, and the same limit appears across the market: signing up to one provider's DFS scheme, such as British Gas's PeakSave Winter, E.ON Next's #PowerSwitch or Octopus Energy's Saving Sessions, prevents signing up with another such as ivie¹⁷. Power Hours, a comparable Uswitch scheme, states it plainly in its rules: NESO DFS events do not form part of that scheme, and signing up to Power Hours enrolls you in its own Reduce & Earn sessions, with only one NESO DFS scheme permitted at a time⁹. Utilita's Power Payback is another DFS offering in the same space¹⁸.

The practical consequence is a choice, not a stack. A household cannot run equiwatt's PowerSmart events and a supplier's DFS scheme in parallel, so the comparison worth making before signing up is between the reward levels, the automation each offers and the effort each demands. Our equiwatt vs supplier flexibility schemes page works that comparison through, and the Demand Flexibility Service page explains the scheme itself.

The limits of the app's independence

Equiwatt reduces one dependence and creates others. It does not tie you to an energy supplier: if you pay a supplier directly for the electricity or gas you use at home, you can switch supplier or tariff at any time¹⁹, switching is straightforward on a variable rate tariff or when a fixed contract is ending²⁰, and it typically takes just a few days without power outages²¹. The app is free, so there is no subscription to cancel¹.

What remains is a chain of dependencies the rewards sit on top of. The meter connection depends on your meter continuing to send half-hourly data and on your consent staying current². Automated participation depends on TP-Link's Kasa cloud, as the offline-plug episodes of 2025 showed, and on your home WiFi⁵. The rewards themselves depend on equiwatt's Gift Store and on events being run at all, which in the PowerSmart case depends on NESO's DFS³. And the whole model depends on the grid needing your flexibility: in a mild winter with ample supply, events are fewer and earnings fall with them.

That is the honest picture of what an app like this adds to a home's energy independence. It converts a smart meter you already have into a small income stream and gives you a reason to learn when your home uses power, which is knowledge that transfers to time-of-use tariffs and to any future flexibility scheme. It does not generate, store or control anything itself. For the wider picture of how monitoring and flexibility fit into a self-sustaining home, see smart meters, monitoring and energy independence, and for the devices that make automation possible, smart plugs and appliance-level monitoring.