
Local energy
Government is investing £100m in smart local energy system innovation projects from 2019-22. The aim is to create high value jobs providing cleaner, cheaper renewable energy.
We’re lucky to work on all the topics that stretch the energy sector: Energy-as-a-Service, Vulnerable Energy Consumers, EV-Charging and Smart Grids (DSR, DSM, P2P, V2G etc).
Government is investing £100m in smart local energy system innovation projects from 2019-22. The aim is to create high value jobs providing cleaner, cheaper renewable energy.
In May 2018 we fielded a team of UX and Service Designers to attend Octopus Energy’s ‘OctoHack’ event where the focus was novel applications of the Agile tariff API.
How to articulate what the key value of your product and services? We ran a 1 day workshop to refine language around a groundbreaking new proposition
60,000 electric vehicles were bought in UK last year. We interviewed electric car drivers to see what they thought about letting energy suppliers control their charging.
People often find their heating controls confusing and hard to use. Most put up with problems like drafts or damp. We knew people liked better control. BEIS wanted to find out how they actually used it, so we used our Living Lab of 100 homes to find out.
If we are to reach net zero carbon emissions, businesses will have to play their part.
We set out to understand what businesses are trying to achieve through energy management and what their key needs are to determine what an energy management solution might look like and how demand-side response (DSR) could be part of this solution.
We collaborated with Bristol Energy to launch the UK’s first ever Heat Plan. Heat Plans allow people to pay for heating in ‘Warm Hours’ instead of traditional kilowatt hours.
It’s hard to relate the things we do at home to the energy we use. So we use models to relate behaviour to energy.
We collaborated with Ofgem to think about the future of energy and what policy change could look like.
There’s growing interest in the idea that businesses could sell energy as a service. Confident we could sell Heat as a Service, we wanted to explore how to add Hot Water. We used a Design Sprint to see how far we could get in three days.
If you’re going big to trial Heat as a Service you’re going to need your own zonal-controller.
Back in 2014 we were early on our journey to find out how to decarbonise heating. Businesses were starting to launch smarter heating controls. We wanted to find out how people used them.
Imagine people bought energy services, like a warm home, instead of units of fuel. Our consumer segmentation report is essential reading to developers of energy services.
We conducted a bespoke four-day design sprint with Big Clean Switch to help them design, build and test a digital platform that allows energy customers to make informed choices about their home energy improvements.
If we want consumers to take up new energy services they must first understand them. We looked into deciphering the language around Demand Side Response (DSR) with our Home Truths® panel.
Want to understand how different EV users charge their vehicles?
We have created five personas based on want consumers want from electric vehicle charging and demand-side response.
As renewable energy generation grows, matching available electricity supply to consumers’ demands gets harder.
We looked at how Electric vehicles could help to balance the grid by testing DSR with domestic EV users. Can this fit into people’s lives? Or will they reject it if it takes away their control?
When it comes to heating, people care more about their experience than how it’s delivered. They want to control how much they spend on their comfort, but don’t know how. If they could buy their Heating as a Service, then they choose how much to spend on their plan.
Back when smart heating controls first came to market government wanted see how easy they were to use to inform their policies.
Decarbonisation of the energy system will change the way that consumers use and buy energy. If you want to ensure that your innovation is inclusive for all it is essential that you understand consumer risks. We created a manual with structured tasks to help you identify your risks and consider how you might address them.
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chat over a cuppa.
Cannon House, 18 The Priory Queensway
Birmingham B4 6BS8
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