The 14 UK DNO regions: mapped
Great Britain is divided into 14 Distribution Network Operator (DNO) regions. A DNO is the company that owns and operates the physical infrastructure, cables, substations, transformers, that carries electricity from the national transmission grid into homes and businesses in a specific geographic area. On Octopus Agile, these regional boundaries define which set of half-hourly prices applies to your meter.
Here are all 14 regions, their operators, and the areas they cover:
| Region Name | DNO Operator | Geographic Coverage | Typical Price Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Western England | National Grid (formerly WPD) | Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, parts of Dorset | Cheapest tier |
| South England | Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks | Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Isle of Wight | Middle tier |
| London | UK Power Networks | Greater London (all 32 boroughs) | More expensive |
| South East England | UK Power Networks | Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey | More expensive |
| Eastern England | UK Power Networks | Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire | Middle tier |
| East Midlands | National Grid (formerly WPD) | Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire | Middle tier |
| Midlands | National Grid (formerly WPD) | West Midlands, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire | Middle tier |
| South Wales | National Grid (formerly WPD) | Wales and Herefordshire | Middle tier |
| North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire | SP Energy Networks | North Wales, Merseyside, Cheshire, parts of Shropshire | Middle tier |
| Yorkshire | Northern Powergrid | Yorkshire, Humberside | Cheapest tier |
| North Western England | Electricity North West | Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria | Cheapest tier |
| Northern England | Northern Powergrid | Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Teesside | Cheapest tier |
| South Scotland | SP Energy Networks | Central Scotland, Lothian, Borders, Ayrshire, Argyll | Cheapest tier |
| North Scotland | Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks | Highlands, Islands, Grampian, Tayside | Cheapest tier |
Your region is fixed by your home's postcode. You cannot choose a different one. What you can choose is how well you understand it and how precisely you time your usage to take advantage of its cheapest hours. The AgileAlert dashboard makes that easy regardless of which of the 14 regions you are in.
Why prices differ between regions
The national wholesale electricity price is set centrally via the EPEX (European Power Exchange) day-ahead market. A price is agreed for each half-hour slot of the following day based on the bids and offers of generators and buyers across the UK and interconnected European markets. In theory, this single price applies everywhere.
In practice, it does not. Two additional cost layers are added on top of the wholesale price before it reaches your meter, and both vary by region.
The first is transmission charges. These are the costs of operating the high-voltage national grid that moves bulk electricity from power stations and wind farms to distribution networks. These charges are applied nationally but weighted by region depending on how far electricity needs to travel and how much the local network uses the national system.
The second is distribution charges. These are the costs of maintaining the local network, the cables, substations and switchgear in your DNO region. A dense urban network like London costs significantly more per unit to maintain than a sparse rural one, not because London uses more electricity per customer, but because the infrastructure complexity per square kilometre is far higher. These charges are passed through directly into your Agile unit rate.
On top of the cost components, local generation also affects the regional price. Regions with abundant renewable generation nearby, particularly wind, see their effective wholesale cost reduced when that generation is running. A wind farm in Yorkshire feeding directly into the regional distribution network pushes down the marginal cost of electricity in Yorkshire. That reduction shows up in lower Agile overnight rates. The same effect does not occur in London, which has almost no local generation and imports all its electricity from the national grid.
The regions that tend to see cheapest Agile prices
Five regions consistently sit at the cheaper end of the national spectrum. All five share a common characteristic: proximity to large-scale renewable generation combined with lower distribution infrastructure costs than the big urban centres.
South Western England covers Cornwall and Devon, the UK's most renewable county by generation percentage. Offshore and onshore wind, tidal generation projects, and strong solar irradiance relative to the rest of the UK all contribute to frequent overnight surplus. When local generation outpaces local demand at night, wholesale prices for the region drop sharply. Plunge pricing events, where prices go to zero or below, are more common here than anywhere except Scotland.
South Scotland is, by most measures, the single greatest renewable generation region in the UK. Scotland generates more than twice its own electricity consumption from renewables, primarily onshore wind across the Highlands and Southern Uplands. South Scotland, covering Central Scotland and the Borders, sits at the top of the distribution chain for this surplus. Overnight rates frequently fall below 3p and plunge events occur multiple times per week in high-wind periods.
North Scotland shares the Scottish renewable advantage but adds the further dimension of Highlands hydro and offshore wind from the Moray Firth. Some of the lowest average overnight prices in the entire UK are recorded in this region during winter, when wind output is highest.
Yorkshire and Northern England both benefit from their proximity to North Sea offshore wind. The Hornsea and Dogger Bank wind complexes, among the world's largest offshore wind installations, sit directly off the Yorkshire and Northumberland coasts. When these giant installations are running at high output, regional prices in Yorkshire and Northern England fall significantly. Overnight rates in the 2-4p range are common on high-wind nights.
The regions that tend to see higher Agile prices
Two regions consistently sit above the national average: London and South East England. The reasons are structural and unlikely to change in the short term.
London has the highest demand density of any DNO region by a significant margin. Nine million people plus a concentrated commercial and industrial sector create peak demand spikes that require expensive grid management. The cost of maintaining and operating the Greater London electricity network, with its complex underground cabling and dense substation network, is reflected in high distribution charges per unit. Local generation is minimal. Every unit consumed in London is imported from the national grid.
Overnight rates in London are still significantly lower than peak rates, and they are still substantially below the 26.11p/kWh July 2026 price cap. But they are typically 6-12p rather than 2-6p. The pattern of cheap overnight and expensive peak is the same. The precise numbers are higher.
South East England shares London's characteristics in a less extreme form. The commuter belt of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex sees sharp demand peaks morning and evening as working populations are active at similar times. Local renewable generation is limited. Network costs are elevated relative to rural regions. The result is overnight rates that sit in the middle to upper part of the national range.
It is important to emphasise: even in London and the South East, Agile is worth it. The saving against the standard price cap is real and substantial. The opportunity is slightly smaller than in Scotland. It is not small.
How to find your region: three methods
There are three reliable ways to identify your DNO region. Each takes under two minutes.
Method 1: The Energy Networks Association postcode checker. Visit energynetworks.org and use the free postcode lookup tool. Enter your postcode and the tool identifies your DNO and the region it covers. This is the most precise method and works for any address in Great Britain.
Method 2: Your electricity bill or supplier account. Your current electricity supplier is required to display your network operator on your bill and in your online account. Look for a section called "network operator," "distribution company," or "DNO." The operator name will correspond to one of the six DNO groups listed in the table above. Match the operator to the region using that table.
Method 3: Your Octopus Energy account. If you are already on Octopus Agile, your region is visible in the app. Go to your account settings or tariff details and your network operator is listed. From there, cross-reference to the table above to confirm your exact price zone.
How to set your region on AgileAlert
Once you know your DNO region, setting it on AgileAlert takes under a minute.
Open the AgileAlert live price dashboard. Near the top of the dashboard, you will see a region selector, a dropdown menu that lists all 14 UK regions. Click on it and select your region from the list. The dashboard updates immediately, and all prices displayed now reflect your region's specific half-hourly rates.
From that moment, every price you see on AgileAlert is the price you pay. The overnight windows, the cheapest half-hours, the plunge pricing events: all are specific to your region. Your appliance scheduling decisions, your EV charge timing, your decision about when to run the dishwasher, they are all based on your actual prices rather than a national average.
The dashboard saves your region selection so you don't need to re-set it each visit. If you use AgileAlert on multiple devices, set it on each one. Consistency matters. A mismatched region on your phone versus your laptop creates the kind of low-level confusion that quietly undermines the habit.
Moving house: how to update your Agile region
Your DNO region is tied to your physical address. If you move house, your region may change, even if you move a short distance. The boundary between two DNO regions can run down the middle of a street in some parts of the country.
When you move, notify Octopus Energy of your new address. They will update your account to reflect the new region and your pricing will shift accordingly. This happens automatically within your Octopus account once the address change is confirmed.
Update your AgileAlert region at the same time. Open the dashboard, select the new region from the dropdown, and your live prices will immediately reflect your new address. If you are unsure of your new region, use the ENA postcode checker as described above.
One practical consideration: if you move from a cheaper region to a more expensive one, your Agile saving will be slightly smaller going forward. If you move from a more expensive region to a cheaper one, your saving will increase. The behavioural habits, checking AgileAlert daily, scheduling overnight, avoiding the 5-8pm window, transfer perfectly to any region. The numbers change; the strategy does not.