25 Hours of Free Electricity

The UK's energy bills crisis is far from over. The route to genuinely lower bills is clean power. But when everyone cooks dinner or runs the washing machine at the same time, the grid strains, and polluting fossil fuels are burned to fill the gap. Uswitch is uniquely positioned to help solve this. Its proprietary Utrack technology, embedded in the free Uswitch app, uses smart meter data to deliver personalised energy insights, earning sessions and cashback rewards. Marking its 25th anniversary, Uswitch tested a compelling question: can financial incentives delivered via smart technology shift mainstream consumer energy behaviour at scale? The idea: 25 Hours of Free Electricity, offering any smart meter household five free, flexible, off-peak hours every weekend in November via the Uswitch app. The PR team developed the consumer narrative and messaging framework that guided all channels, and ensured the campaign was framed as a genuine consumer benefit. The campaign outperformed expectations, generating 51 pieces of national coverage reaching 307m+, 60,200 sign-ups, and smart meter connections to the Uswitch app grew by 300% during the campaign period. The final week broke all previous records with 24,000 smart meter connections – 2.5x the previous highest. Crucially, 77% of participants shifted their electricity consumption to their free off-peak slot without increasing overall usage – proving demand flexibility works at mass-market scale, with the right technology. Post-campaign brand health tracking showed uplifts in Energy Consideration (+5pts), Brand Trust (+4pts) and Consumer Champion perception (+3pts).