Virtual power plant (VPP) platform profile
Uplight: utility flexibility programs, now backed by Octopus
The utility-facing platform behind rebates, enrollment and demand response for more than 85 utilities, and what Octopus Energy’s majority stake changes.
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The short answer
- Uplight sells utilities the customer side of flexibility. It runs enrollment, rebates, rates, efficiency and demand response programs, and since buying AutoGrid in 2023 it also runs the flexibility management software behind them (Uplight).
- Octopus Energy Group is now the majority owner. The deal was signed in March 2026 with Schneider Electric staying on as a significant minority investor (Octopus Energy) and closed on September 1, 2026; Uplight remains an independent company (Uplight via Utility Dive).
- Scale is utility-wide. Uplight reports 8.5 GW of flexible load across more than 85 utilities, including eight of the ten largest in North America, and more than one million enrolled devices in 2026 (Uplight via Utility Dive).
- Its programs mostly sit at the demand response end today. The stated goal is to turn those programs into capacity a utility can plan around, which is the step toward an orchestrated VPP.
Where Uplight fits
Highlighted boxes are the roles this company plays; the green bar shows where its programs sit from demand response to an orchestrated VPP.
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What Uplight does
Uplight calls its approach the Demand Stack: one platform for efficiency, electrification, rates and flexibility programs, so that customer participation can be counted as grid capacity (Uplight via Utility Dive). In practice, that means the utility-branded marketplace where a customer buys a thermostat with a rebate, the enrollment flow that signs that thermostat up for a peak program, and the software that calls it during an event.
Uplight says its programs have returned $586 million to customers since 2020 through efficiency savings, rebates and incentives, and that its 2025 season tripled the flexible capacity its programs created (Uplight via Utility Dive). Those are gross figures; they do not net out program costs.
Uplight’s flexible capacity and five-year target
Gigawatts (GW) of flexible load, company-reported
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The Octopus deal
Octopus Energy Group signed to take a majority stake in March 2026, beating about a dozen other bidders, with Schneider Electric remaining a significant minority partner (Octopus Energy; Uplight). The deal closed September 1, 2026. Nick Chaset, chief executive of Octopus Energy U.S., became Uplight’s chief executive as well, and the companies set targets of $1 billion in customer savings and 20 GW of flexible capacity over five years (Uplight via Utility Dive).
Two Octopus products are joining Uplight’s suite: Octopus Shift, a customer app for enrolling in and staying engaged with utility flexibility programs, and Octopus PowerStore, a no-upfront-cost home battery that gives utilities dispatchable storage (Uplight via Utility Dive). Analysts read the deal as connecting Octopus’s customer propositions to U.S. utility grid operations (Verdantix).
Note the corporate lines: Uplight is now part of Octopus Energy Group, while Kraken, the software Octopus built, is a separate company in which Octopus keeps a minority stake. See the Kraken and Octopus Energy profile.
What it means for program design
One vendor for the customer journey
Combining rebates, rates and device control lets a utility track a customer from purchase to enrollment to dispatch, which is where many programs lose participants.
From enrollment counts to planning-grade capacity
The stated aim is capacity a utility can include in its resource plan. That requires verified performance per device, not just enrolled-device totals.
A utility-side channel
Uplight runs utility programs rather than bidding its own fleet, so device makers and aggregators typically integrate with it rather than compete with it.
Method and caveats
Figures are company-reported, checked October 15, 2026. Deal terms were not disclosed. “Flexible load managed” is Uplight’s measure and is not the same as capacity dispatched in a single event.