Igloo Energy has been awarded more than £1 million in grants to develop its energy saving software in partnership with two universities.
The department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) awarded the first grant of £900,000 as part of the thermal efficiency innovation fund – a government led scheme investing up to £10 million to develop technologies and approaches to increase energy efficiency across the UK.
It will fund a two-year project to develop software that identifies suitable energy efficient upgrades for customers’ homes.
Research will include analysing energy consumption and using insights from interacting with customers. It will also use datasets that describe customers’ homes, the applicances they own and how they use them.
Igloo will work in partnership with the team at the Energy and Climate Change Division at the University of Southampton, which will focus on customer engagement, and testing the recommendations.
The company said it will be able to understand the value to each customer of installing smart energy efficiency measures and provide customers with “highly personalised recommendations” to make it easier for them to reduce bills and help the UK improve the energy efficiency of its housing stock.
Research from the UK Energy Research Centres shows that by introducing cost effective measures, the country could save a quarter of the energy used by households by 2035.
Foresight Group, the other partner for the BEIS funding, will investigate the delivery of low cost financing through “innovative funding approaches” within infrastructure and green energy.
Igloo Energy has also been awarded a £120,000 grant by Innovate UK as part of the industrial strategy challenge fund.
The project, in partnership with University College London, is to support the understanding of existing data to create more confident insights into customers energy consumption.
The grant will enable the creation of an inventory of the “vast amount” of energy, property and socio-economic data freely available in the UK alongside energy and contextual data. It will also investigate the quality of the data available.
Once created, machine learning techniques will be used to process the data and derive insight into consumer behaviour that will describe how a customer’s energy consumption pattern relates to their lifestyle and property. In addition, it will consider the relationship between consumption and energy spend and expenditure on energy efficient home improvements.
Chief executive and co-founder of Igloo Energy Matt Clemow, said: “At a time when there are a significant number of new energy companies coming to market competing solely on price with no real differentiation, it’s great that Igloo has been recognised as a real innovator in the UK energy market.
“Our customers are already using smart technology and seeing their energy consumption, and bills, drop by up to 30 per cent. With these grants, we’re excited to be able to develop our technology to bring even greater savings, reduce household emissions further and boost local economies by increasing consumers’ disposable incomes.
“Our mission is to break the link between profit and volumes of energy sold. Instead our focus is on the provision of energy services to customers that reduce the cost and hassle of running a home. This isn’t just good for our consumers; the environment wins too. After all, the greenest unit of energy is the unit you don’t use.”