Axle Energy

Just asking as to the pro/cons of signing up to Axle Energy that is advertised on the Giv Energy site.

Any info would be appreciated, thank you.

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(Welcome to the forum.)

The pro is that they take control of your inverter, and do all the work for you during a savings session.
The con is that they take control of your inverter, mess with the settings, and might leave it in a different state than they found it.

I'm not sure how many more savings sessions are due this year. IIRC it was "at least 12", and we've had 11. But it might have been "at least 12 tests", and I don't know how many of the 11 were tests and how were "real".

You can only signed up to one DFS aggregator. I've stuck with Octopus who, I think, have been slightly more generous ? I prefer to do things manually.

If your system is new, you might not have your export metering sorted out yet. You'd need that before you can sign up to any DFS service.

DD ...and of course if your system is new you may want to read the warranty part about "grid trading" carefully.

It's good but your later to the party this time, i think at most they maybe 4 at max left if any

I think only two of the savings sessions were not tests, the two longer ones. So we are expecting three more test sessions.

nophead agreed, there have only been two live events and they said there would be 12 tests” the ESO will again run 12 tests between November and March 2024.

The first six of these tests will pay registered DFS providers (such as energy suppliers, aggregators, and third parties) a guaranteed minimum price of £3KWh, which they will pass onto their customers through rewards such as pounds, points, or prizes. ”

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/industry-information/balancing-services/demand-flexibility-service/esos-demand-flexibility-service

Looks like they missed out on today's.

GaryS Seems strange that we missed out using the "automated" service they offer. Shame as I have a 3/4 full battery sat here doing nothing much at the moment.

DaringSquirrel Axle didn't bid enough to take part so that's why you didn't get any money.

Axle has this rather cryptic answer regarding "battery settings" on their FAQs. Has anyone signed up to Axle with their GE system any experience of this?
Does it mean that our inverter's settings might get changed after every event and we would have to go in and manually reset the individual settings?

o1975 Yes, you need to be very vigilant, somewhat undermining the point of it all.

Avenir Yes, you need to be very vigilant, somewhat undermining the point of it all.

Or set your own schedules which they allow. I asked them that very Question and they replied as follows.

Manual scheduling: Yes, you're welcome to schedule the export yourself during event windows rather than rely on our remote control. As long as your battery exports during the event, we'll compensate you at £1/kWh based on the readings. We announce events the day before via email, so you'll have time to set your own schedule.

duplada How does that work then? You just don't set up the API access? Does that mean I could sign up to Axle and not give them access to my inverter at all, but still get the GE premium?

I don't know in practise as I haven't got past subscribing. However I did ask the question and above is the reply I received from Axle support. I have seen users report that on their Event emails there was a option to opt out of direct control for the event.

duplada I asked them that very Question and they replied as follows.

Was that before they had negotiated with GE to arrange premium access for all subscribers ?

DD No it was Friday 29/05/2026 they replied Monday this week 01/05/2026

duplada

June not bursting out quite everywhere then?…😉

Watcher Quite they replied 01/06/2026