Thousands of customers were paid to switch off their appliances on Tuesday night.

This is part of another test of National Grid ESO‘s Demand Flexibility Service which run yesterday and saw British Gas, EDF and OVO join the scheme.

The scheme allows households to get paid for shifting their energy usage out of peak times.

Customers could be paid up to £6 per kilowatt hour of energy saved.

A British Gas spokesperson said: “We will be doubling the payments made to customers on our Peak Save trial this winter to provide a greater incentive to shift demand.

“For instance, if you save 1Kwh in energy and National Grid pays you £3 then we will double this to £6 and will all go as a credit on your energy bill. We will also boost customers who make small savings to make sure they earn at least £1 from each event.”

Last month, Octopus Energy said its customers across the UK received a share of a total of £1 million for reducing their energy usage at peak hours.