Manchester-based Evergreen Smart Power are an innovative Virtual Power Plant business, aggregating and controlling domestic energy loads resulting from electric vehicles (EVs) and heating to suit specific customer, market, generation and grid conditions.

Evergreen’s EV solution can respond to grid conditions, moving charging to off-peak hours to reduce strain on the network at peak times, while ensuring that EVs are sufficiently charged when needed. The solution also optimises other loads, such as heat pumps and electric heaters.

Energy Launchpad helped Evergreen develop their future roadmap through competitive landscaping, consumer insights/trial and detailed analysis with our Business Model Innovation team. This examined alternative target markets and revenue streams. Outputs were developed to be used for pitches to future investors.

Following this incubation support, Energy Systems Catapult then helped Evergreen develop and deliver a follow-on test & demonstration project called Flexibly-Responsive Energy Delivery with 250 consumers driving and smart-charging EVs at home – supported by our Consumer Insight team.

Evergreen Smart Power Co-Founder Andy McKay said: “Prior to this piece of work we had one main product. In effect this has identified two new product variants that address innovative opportunities and other areas that will move quicker than our long term market. This will translate into 3 separate platforms requiring separate teams.

“Energy Launchpad has allowed us to tap into a wide range of energy sector industry expertise with a support package tailored to our specific needs. It’s an opportunity every energy start-up would benefit from.”

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Bristol Energy became the first energy supplier in the UK to trial selling ‘Heat-as-a-Service’ (HaaS).

Instead of purchasing units of energy (kWh), HaaS allows consumers to buy hours of warmth for a price that is tailored to their specific home and lifestyle using data from their own sensors and smart heating controls.

HaaS could provide a powerful proposition to switch consumers to low carbon heating and create opportunities for entirely new business models and policy options.

Energy Systems Catapult helped Bristol Energy design and trial a HaaS offering with consumers in our Living Lab of real-world homes:

• Designing a HaaS offering for Bristol Energy using data from homes in the Living Lab to give consumers improved control over comfort and cost.
• The trial allowed Bristol Energy to test an innovative business model with services offered as either pay-as-you-go or for fixed monthly prices, that included the option of low carbon retrofit bundled into the price.
• The project helped Bristol Energy attract new customers and switch them to their HaaS offer.
• Nine out of ten new customers continue to use HaaS (the 10% that didn’t were too late to the offer), with half opting to include low carbon retrofit.

Citizens Advice commissioned research from Energy Systems Catapult to understand the risks and opportunities involved in a smart energy future – and how consumer protection needs to evolve.

Smart energy – where digital controls and sensors help tailor energy provision for each specific household – has the potential to revolutionise how people buy energy and interact with suppliers.

Smarter protections: Potential risks for consumers in a smart energy future – explored the consumer issues through a short six week activity of desk based research, a workshop between Citizens Advice and Energy Systems Catapult and feedback from industry and policy stakeholders in the sector.

The research is now informing Citizens Advice’s approach to consumer protection so it can effectively advocate for consumers as smart energy evolves.

Following this work, the Energy Revolution integration Service funded the development of an interactive Smarter Consumer Protection Manual to provide energy innovators with clear, structured techniques to help consider consumer protection, whether you are designing a new innovation or already have the technology and service available.

See the Smarter Consumer Protection Manual.

Energy Systems Catapult utilised their unique combination of consumer research and energy expertise to Understand the Consumer Perspective on Net Zero.

As part of the Innovating to Net Zero project that modelled 100s of potential pathways to achieve 2050 carbon emissions targets – over 2,000 people were surveyed and focus groups conducted to understand public attitudes, including:

• Perceptions of climate change, its severity and what activity contributes to it
• Attitudes towards low carbon technologies and behaviours in heating, diet and transport.

The research found that while most people (75%) believe climate change is a serious threat, many are still unclear about which parts in their lives contribute to the problem – with only 49% realising gas heating emit carbon.

Other key findings include:

• 49% of people think agriculture contributes to climate change
• 41% of people would be willing to cut red meat intake by a quarter
• 34% of people that flew last year would be willing to fly less often in the year ahead
• 22% of people would consider switching to an electric car in the next year
• Less than 20% of people would consider switching to low carbon heating.