Leading smart energy saving options revealed in GB competition

A smart thermostat and gamification are found to have delivered the greatest savings in the GB government’s ‘Smart Energy Savings Innovation’ competition.

The competition, which trialled five different products, found that of these, both the smart thermostat and gamification delivered statistically significant reductions in gas consumption – 5% (error 3.9%) for the thermostat and 4.6% (error 2%) for the gaming.

Of the other three options, two focussed on personalised reporting and advice and the third on local energy markets, the analysis was unable to provide definitive evidence of energy consumption reduction, although there were individual reductions and changes in behaviour.

The competition, which was launched in February 2019, was aimed to identify and deploy new products and services using smart meter data that could deliver additional energy savings for consumers over and above the baseline smart metering proposition.

An initial selection of eight projects was reduced down on evaluation to five for trialling.

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The trials started in January 2020 but were hit with the government-driven COVID-19 restrictions, which impacted recruitment and led to their extension by a year to March 2022.

The five products were as follows:
● Smart thermostat, providing an understanding of energy consumption and enabling remote control of heating – led by Green Energy Options.
● Gamification based on energy consumption information and historical consumption patterns – led by GenGame.
● ‘More effective and efficient thermal comfort’ (MEETS) to manage heating through home performance analytics and advice – led by Lightbulb.
● ‘Smart local energy markets’ with household cooperatives accessing local small scale generation – led by Energy Local Community Interest Company.
● ‘Intelligent digital energy advisory’ (IDEAS) with personalised energy savings advice – led by Eliq Ltd.

The smart thermostat and GenGame products were two of the three that employed either an experimental or quasi-experimental design.

In the case of the third, MEETS, there was a lower number of trialists than originally planned. In addition, Lightbulb’s parent Igloo Energy’s insolvency led to a ‘coaching’ intervention anticipated as the primary driver of behaviour change not delivered as intended.

Regarding the other two, in the Energy Local trial, while triallists reported more energy efficient behaviours, an overall electricity consumption reduction was not evidenced. However, there was evidence of changing behaviour to make full use of the supply from local renewable sources and to use electricity at more off peak times.

Similarly in the IDEAS intervention trialists indicatively had lower energy consumption over the trial period. However, in part due to a change in energy supplier partner, low numbers of trialists had access to the product over a relatively short period of time and limited interaction took place.

The trial evaluation, which was prepared by market research specialist Ipsos and the Energy Saving Trust, finds that across all trials, a critical finding was that the novelty, utility and relevance of energy information presented to trialists was key.

“Actionable advice that was tailored to the trialist’s household and existing energy usage was one of the most important drivers behind satisfaction and sustained engagement with the product/service.”

Energy savings product commercialisation

A key objective of the competition was to support the commercialisation of the products and services and the report says that strong evidence presented by the partners suggests that the matched funding helped achieve strong commercial readiness.

While the market for energy advice/feedback products continues to develop organically, most of the competition partners have plans in place to roll out their products more widely, highlighting the continued commercial interest and growing user acceptance.

Continued innovation and refinement of smart meter data access, including for third parties, will help grow the market further, the report concludes.