Trial Services
Living Lab
Soft launch your product or service to check it works before opening your gates to the public. Includes 100 highly instrumented homes and a suite of modelling tools.
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Discover what people really value with bespoke research
Build appealing propositions with our experienced players
Discover how consumers use your product or service
Harness innovation to reduce vulnerability to fuel poverty and design smarter consumer protection
UX/UI excellence from a team of proven heavyweights
See beyond what people say to understand what they do in smart homes around the UK
Soft launch your product or service to check it works before opening your gates to the public. Includes 100 highly instrumented homes and a suite of modelling tools.
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.
Kick-start innovation with design thinking. Map out how your customers experience your product or service. Then use simple exercises to structure your creativity.
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.
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.
We can take responsibility for the entire design development cycle and build you a winning digital experience that is consumer-proven, technically robust and developer-ready.
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
Turn your concept into a prototype you can get feedback on. Our service designers and UX professionals can help you apply leading-edge digital tools to qualify and de-risk your idea.
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.
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.
We hear more and more about electric vehicles every day. We see charging points for them at supermarkets and motorway services. But how do people really feel about EVs?
We use 80% of our energy at home for heating and hot water. This produces 20% of our carbon emissions. We need to give people the heat they want without the carbon. So, back in 2013, we built a team of leading academics and consultants to understand how people use heat at home.
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.
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.
Back when smart heating controls first came to market government wanted see how easy they were to use to inform their policies.
We succeed when you succeed: leverage our unique position
We are helping shape the policy landscape for the next 25 years
Matchmakers for government and entrepreneurs
Use Catapult modelling tools to validate propositions across the wider energy system
We collaborate with innovators to deliver projects that move towards decarbonisation goals
The Energy Systems Catapult is a not-for-profit set up by government to help the energy sector innovate. PeopleLab is home to our Consumer Insight team.
Find out more about the rest of the Catapult here then get us involved.
Invite us to your Hackathons and Design Sprints…
…it’s free!
Come and see us for a friendly
chat over a cuppa.
Cannon House, 18 The Priory Queensway
Birmingham B4 6BS8
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