Carbon targets are fast approaching, with many governments now committed to Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050. To reach these goals we need to be able to make use of renewable energy sources (like wind and solar) by balancing supply with demand.

Smart technologies can help by increasing demand when supplies are high or decreasing demand when supplies are low. This is called Demand-Side Response (DSR).

Companies will need to play their role in helping cut emissions, however, their main priority is their business. The EnergyIQ project is funded by UK & Canadian Governments to understand how we can help businesses manage their energy and reduce their emissions together with DSR.

Energy Systems Catapult set out to understand what companies need to better manage their energy by speaking to different sized businesses in both the UK and Canada.

The Catapult’s Consumer Insight team worked with Q Energy, a digital energy services company in the UK who have developed a proposition for an energy management system which also enables DSR. Their tool aims to deliver energy, cost, and carbon savings to businesses.

We combined our understanding of what a business needs from energy management with some user testing of Q Energy’s tool and proposition. From this we were able to understand what an energy management solution needs to do to help businesses meet their needs, and how DSR could be part of this solution.

Key points

Energy Systems Catapult were able to understand:

• What businesses need from energy management. We wanted to understand what businesses are doing now and what they are trying to accomplish through energy management. By doing this we were able to identify their needs and found that there are four key jobs Energy Managers are trying to achieve.
• What an energy management solution needs to help meet business needs. We discovered what a tool requires to meet energy management needs and help Energy Managers get their jobs done more easily.
• Current perceptions and barriers to DSR. We were able to understand how Energy Managers’ current perceptions of DSR influences their uptake and engagement in DSR. From this, we identified what an energy management service needs to do to help make a proposition acceptable.

We now know what businesses need from energy management and how DSR services could engage people more effectively. Energy service companies like Q Energy can use these findings to better understand their customers’ needs and improve the design of their products or services so that they deliver more value.