For the first time, this year’s tech summit was made open to Octopus customers through a ballot. In the words of CEO Greg Jackson, holding these summits behind closed doors defeats the purpose of democratising energy, and building towards a just and equitable transition that lifts us all up alongside.

The day started with a keynote from Colonel Chris Hadfield, renowned astronaut, prolific author, and public speaker, on both the most pressing challenges facing humanity – including climate change – and how the sciences and technology coupled with Apollo programme-levels of ambition can help us rise to overcome them.

No shortage of recognisable names followed: physicist Professor Brian Cox, in his trademark poetic style, reminded us all of the very real likelihood that we are the only examples of intelligent life in the galaxy, and should treat the finite resources of the world with the level of responsibility that demands. Professor Hannah Fry shared some of the latest advances in the field of human longevity; not only will there be significantly more people across the planet over the next fifty years, they also be living much longer thanks to rapid advances in cellular rejuvenation therapies. The case for accelerating the clean energy transition becomes even stronger when we properly internalise just how many of us the Earth still needs to support, whilst ensuring all can live a life of dignity, without dangerously exhausting our finite resources.

Sir Stephen Fry in conversation with Yuval Noah Harari explored the complex societal and ethical challenges of integrating and aligning with a potentially super-intelligent AI; one notable analogy was made between training AI and teaching children – kids are far more likely to copy what you do, not what you tell them to do. As such, telling an AI to behave ethically whilst we as humans continue to lie, cheat, and steal, could lead us to a super-intelligence with all the motivations and methods of Mr Burns.

In a surprise announcement, Octopus Energy revealed a partnership with Chinese EV maker BYD, having recently overtaken Tesla in global market share, offering UK customers a fully-electric BYD Dolphin with 100% free electricity and a home charger for £299/month. This is the first example worldwide of a bundled EV leasing programme, made possible by Kraken‘s cutting edge flexibility and trading capabilities allowing Octopus to intelligently charge the EV when power is cheap and trade it back to the grid when plugged in at peak times. It remains to be seen how Octopus will overcome the key challenge of V2G schemes – the increased charging and discharging as the EV trades with the grid significantly increases the degradation of the vehicle’s battery, shortening the lifespan of the asset. However, as this is a lease programme, the risk is not borne by the driver as it would be if they owned the vehicle outright. If combined with an efficient lithium reclamation mechanism at the end of the vehicle’s life, this could be a coup for Octopus Energy as it further extends its lead as the UK’s largest energy supplier.

With Octopus Energy able to put this 3,000-capacity event together in the incredible span of five weeks, not to mention the energy and enthusiasm over the day, the Energy Tech Summit sets a new precedent for engagement and optimism for the clean energy transition. For many of us today, and for all those who aren’t yet, energy that is truly too cheap to meter is drawing tantalisingly close.