Procode takes an energy efficiency snapshot of Britain’s homes
At Procode, we are always keen to build on our portfolio of innovative technology, whether that is through development in our own smart hub of Agile evangelist developers on Britain’s south coast or through the acquisition of tech built by like-minded companies.
Procode’s latest innovation has come through the latter channel.
The new acquisition, a suite of smart technology called Ecofit, allows householders in the UK to discover which free or subsidised energy measures, such as a boiler upgrade or loft insulation, are available to them more easily.
The Ecofit API – dubbed by Procode as the ‘property performance snapshot’ – was created by Tim Maxwell and Harry Smith, two British environmentalists. This scalable solution collates multiple disparate data sources on UK homes to discover which homes are eligible for 11 different decarbonisation and energy efficiency grants available in the UK, including the Boiler upgrade scheme, the Great British Insulation Scheme, the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and the Home Upgrade Grant.
Ecofit creates a simple snapshot of each home built from 70 different data points which helps identify how homes could be adapted to make homeowners’ energy spend go further.
The information collated includes the date the property was built, the size of the property and what it was built from. It also contains highly granular information about which areas of the property are insulated, whether renewable technologies like solar are installed and even how many LED lightbulbs are in the property.
Households whose energy is supplied by Procode’s parent company Utilita Energy, known for helping low-income households to join the net zero journey and to save on their energy bills during the cost-of-living crisis, will be the first in the UK to take advantage of the new technology.
Combined with Utilita households’ smart meter data, powered by Procode’s smart meter technology, it will enable customers to be notified of bespoke retrofit improvements and their potential savings.
Ecofit is a true innovation in the energy field. Although the data that people need to make property retrofit decisions is out there, it’s not easy to find or understand.
The property performance API fast-tracks the entire process and delivers a prescription of measures, their costs and the return on that investment that households can consider against their current energy spend, to see what measures are worthwhile.
I believe energy smart data and property profiling has the power to accelerate the UK’s decarbonisation efforts and shave hundreds from energy bills.
The cost-of-living crisis has accelerated and increased demand for energy efficiency retrofit measures, but the disparate nature of the data that informs the best interventions was a significant barrier to measures being applied. The API solution will speed up the identification and eligibility process and the information provided will help to deliver the best outcomes for the pocket and planet.
Utilita Energy customers will be the first to enjoy access to this new too but some 20 million UK households – those that have already had an energy performance assessment – could also benefit from such a performance snapshot. Our plan at Procode is to deliver the service to millions more households via a range of partners, including other energy suppliers and health and welfare support stakeholders.