Why innovation and industry must work together for energy efficiency

Thursday 2nd February 2012

Utility Week has today reported on the Energy Innovation Centre being awarded almost £30 million by Ofgem to bring smart grid technologies to market, drawing from the energy regulator’s Innovation Funding Incentive scheme and the Low Carbon Networks Fund.

The Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) brings together energy innovation and industry in the UK to help the move towards a more sustainable, low carbon future. Innovators are being encouraged to approach the EIC with ideas, which will then be put forward for funding to the electricity distribution network operators.

As Denise Massey, EIC director comments, they are ultimately looking for “products that will help manage demand and encourage more efficient use of energy".

In my view, a sustainable future is absolutely dependent on a partnership between innovation and industry. In December 2011, Navetas was highlighted as an example of British design-led innovation in a Design Council campaign, which showcased our smart meter technology as an example of how design can be the catalyst to successfully commercialise scientific innovation.

Our technology was born out of research and development from the University of Oxford, developing an intelligent energy disaggregation technology that can uniquely monitor how much energy is being used by different appliances in the home, from a single point.

This marrying of ideas and business is a subject that our CEO, Chris Saunders, has spoken about at length, and he commented recently in line with the Design Council campaign: “Cutting edge research and development goes on across British Universities, but it’s essential the Government and industry supports this innovation.”

The EIC appears to have real potential to provide the platform that is needed to transform technological concepts into real-world products, so innovative energy technologies similar to those from Navetas can be brought to market.

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