Octopus Energy + Home Assistant Integration UK 2026

Five practical use cases unlock once the integration is in place:

• Cheap-rate automation. Schedule appliances (washing machine, dishwasher, EV charger, immersion heater) to run during the cheapest 30-minute slots of the day.
• Dynamic price-aware EV charging. Pause charging during expensive peaks, resume during cheap troughs - useful even on flat tariffs as a sanity check.
• Intelligent Octopus Go dispatch sync. If you're on IO Go, expose the smart-charging dispatches Octopus has scheduled so your home charger respects them without going off-script.
• Real-time energy dashboards. Combine consumption sensors with current rates to show today's spend, average rate, and savings vs flat tariff in HA's Energy dashboard.
• Notifications. Alert when the next 30-min rate is unusually high or low, or when a target-rate window starts.

The integration is distributed through HACS (Home Assistant Community Store), which is the standard way to install community integrations.

• 1. Install HACS if you haven't already. Follow the official guide at hacs.xyz - it's a one-time setup involving a SSH session to your HA host and adding a long-lived access token.
• 2. Add the integration in HACS. Go to HACS → Integrations → Custom repositories. Add BottlecapDave/HomeAssistant-OctopusEnergy as type Integration. Then search for "Octopus Energy" in HACS and click Download.
• 3. Restart Home Assistant. Settings → System → Restart.
• 4. Add the integration. Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration. Search for "Octopus Energy" and configure with your API key.

The integration auto-discovers your accounts, meters (electricity and gas), tariffs, and EV charger registration (if you're on IO Go). Initial sync takes 1-2 minutes.

Octopus's API key is your authentication credential for the integration:

• 1. Log into your Octopus Energy account at octopus.energy.
• 2. Navigate to Account → API access (sometimes shown as "Personal access" depending on UI version).
• 3. Generate a new API key if you don't have one. Copy it immediately - it's only shown once.
• 4. Keep your account number handy too (format: A-XXXX-XXXX). You'll need it for the HA integration configuration.

The API key is your private credential. Don't paste it into public forums, GitHub issues, or shared chats. If you suspect it's compromised, regenerate it from the same Account page.

Once configured, the integration creates entities for each meter on your account. The main ones:

• sensor.octopus_energy_electricity_current_rate - the current half-hourly rate in p/kWh.
• sensor.octopus_energy_electricity_next_rate - the rate starting at the next 30-minute boundary.
• sensor.octopus_energy_electricity_current_consumption - current half-hourly consumption (lagged by ~1 day for non-smart-meter accounts; real-time for IHD-paired smart meters).
• sensor.octopus_energy_electricity_previous_consumption - the previous day's consumption.
• binary_sensor.octopus_energy_target_rate_cheap_evening - a configurable target-rate sensor that turns ON during the cheapest N consecutive 30-min slots in a defined window.
• binary_sensor.octopus_energy_intelligent_dispatching - on IO Go: true when Octopus is currently dispatching cheap-rate charging to your EV.
• sensor.octopus_energy_intelligent_next_dispatch_start - the timestamp of the next scheduled dispatch window.

For full entity names, see the integration's documentation - the BottlecapDave repo has a comprehensive entity reference.

The target-rate sensor is the building block. Three steps to automate a washing machine to run during the cheapest 3-hour window each night:

• 1. Create a target-rate sensor. In the integration's Options panel, add a target rate with: target type = continuous, hours = 3, look at = next 16 hours, time window = 22:00 to 14:00 next day. This will turn on for a 3-hour stretch in the cheapest window.
• 2. Set up the appliance. Your washing machine needs to be either a smart appliance (with HA integration) or plugged into a smart plug that HA can control.
• 3. Create an automation. Trigger: target-rate binary sensor turns ON. Condition: washing machine is loaded (a manual input_boolean toggle you set when loading the machine). Action: turn on the smart plug. Add a second automation for OFF: trigger when target rate turns off, action turn off the plug.

For dishwashers and immersion heaters, the same pattern works. For tumble dryers (which need to finish before morning), use a shorter target window like 4 hours within 22:00-06:00.

If you're on Intelligent Octopus Go (IO Go) with a supported EV or charger, Octopus controls your smart-charging windows directly via API to the charger or vehicle. The HA integration syncs these dispatch windows so your home automation respects them.

• binary_sensor.octopus_energy_intelligent_dispatching is ON during scheduled smart-charge windows (typically 23:30-05:30 base window, plus optional extra dispatches when Octopus chooses).
• sensor.octopus_energy_intelligent_next_dispatch_start / _end give you the next-window timing.
• Use cases: turn other heavy appliances on during dispatch windows (you're paying cheap rate for everything, not just the EV). Send a notification when an unexpected daytime dispatch happens.

Important: the integration reads dispatches; it doesn't control charging directly. Your charger gets its smart-charge schedule from Octopus's API, not from HA. If you want HA to also control charging (for example, override during a planned long trip), use a separate charger-side integration like Ohme or Wallbox alongside this one.

Home Assistant's built-in Energy dashboard works with the integration's consumption sensors directly:

• 1. Settings → Dashboards → Energy → Add Consumption → select sensor.octopus_energy_electricity_previous_consumption (or current for real-time accounts).
• 2. For cost display, add the current-rate sensor as the cost provider. HA multiplies kWh by p/kWh and shows daily spend.
• 3. For gas, repeat with gas consumption + standing charge sensors.

For a more advanced dashboard, the integration's ApexCharts-card examples in the repo's wiki show how to render the next 24 hours of rates with a coloured cheap/expensive overlay. This makes timing manual actions (running the dishwasher, charging a laptop, etc.) much easier without leaving HA.

See our Home Assistant Energy dashboard for UK SMETS2 meters guide for the broader dashboard setup; this guide adds the Octopus-specific overlay.

Six issues users hit most often:

• Consumption data is delayed. For SMETS1 and non-IHD-paired accounts, Octopus updates consumption ~1 day later. The integration honours that lag - don't expect real-time data unless you have an IHD-paired smart meter.
• Target-rate sensors don't refresh instantly. They evaluate the next-day rates after Octopus publishes them around 16:00 daily. Don't trigger before that.
• API rate limits. Octopus's API allows generous limits but the integration polls regularly - don't add multiple instances of the same account.
• Tariff changes. When you switch tariffs (e.g. flexible → Agile), restart HA after the new tariff goes live - the integration caches tariff metadata.
• Multiple meters. If you have an EV and an export tariff (Octopus Outgoing), the integration creates separate entities for import and export meters. Don't accidentally automate against the export entity.
• Time zone. All Octopus rates are in UK time. HA must be set to Europe/London or the slot boundaries will be off.

For UK Octopus customers running Home Assistant, BottlecapDave's Octopus Energy integration is the standard install - mature, actively maintained, and feature-complete for Agile rate sensors, target-rate automation, and Intelligent Octopus Go dispatch sync. Install via HACS, drop in your API key, and within an hour you have a smart-tariff-aware home automation setup that pays for itself many times over across a year.

The integration's docs at the BottlecapDave/HomeAssistant-OctopusEnergy GitHub repo are comprehensive and worth reading once you have the basics working - they cover advanced cases like cost discount overlays, octopus outgoing export tracking, and saving-session integrations. For broader HA energy setup context, see our Home Assistant Energy dashboard guide and our whole-home energy monitoring guide.

The official Octopus Energy site is octopus.energy; Home Assistant's official documentation is at home-assistant.io.