Octopus Energy paid its UK customers collectively over £100,000 during a recent heat wave, not through new infrastructure, but a text message and a price signal offering demand flexibility. That caught our attention.

In this episode, Ed and Sara (David sits this one out) talk with Eric Davids, Head of Strategy for Octopus Energy's US business, about redefining utility-customer relationships, how approaches in the UK stack up against North American utilities' much blunter "please conserve" grid alerts, and what happens when consumers get real price exposure and it doesn't go well.

🎙️ TIMESTAMPS
0:52 – Episode intro
1:56 – Welcome Eric Davids
5:57 – What is demand flexibility?
7:40 – Inside Octopus's £100K UK heat wave response
9:51 – Alberta's grid alerts vs. Octopus's incentives
22:11 – Guardrails against price exposure risk (Winter Storm Uri)
28:21 – Is this just another hype cycle?
35:45 – Equity and the energy transition

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They say there's no growth without feedback. This season, you've given us plenty of it.

In this episode, David, Sara, and Ed do something most podcasters shouldn't do: they read the comments. Out loud and on purpose.

Some feedback was positive. Some was additive. Some fell into the category we're calling "strongly suggestive."

If you've ever left a comment on an EvC clip wondering whether David, Sara and Ed actually saw it: they did. This is what they had to say back.

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Ed's new project, Critical Mass, starts with a deceptively simple question: if Canada decides it wants more nuclear power, can it actually deliver it? The answer turns out to be complicated.

As part of the project, we're hosting four live town halls across the country. The first was recorded at Toronto Climate Week on June 5, featuring Todd Smith (former Ontario Minister of Energy, now VP at Candu Energy) and Brendan Frank (VP of Policy at Clean Prosperity). Together they work through the project's core tensions - cost, democratic legitimacy, and standardization - with the kind of honest talk you've come to expect from EvC.

Thank you to Geoff Burt and The Consecon Foundation for helping make the evening possible.

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