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Smart Energy Savings (SENS) competition

The SENS competition aims to develop and trial innovative feedback products and services that use smart meter data, to help domestic customers reduce their energy consumption.

Documents

The Smart ENergy Savings (SENS) Innovation Competition: overview

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The Smart Energy Savings (SENS) innovation competition: guidance

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Questions and answers

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Grant award terms and conditions and grant award letter: template

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SENS innovation competition: potential interventions and how they would have impact

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Details

The government has committed up to £6.25 million for the Smart ENergy Savings (SENS) Competition. The competition will support the development, trialling and evaluation of innovative feedback products and services that use smart meter data to help domestic consumers reduce their energy consumption.

Competition overview

The SENS overview outlines:

  • what the SENS competition is
  • what it is hoping to achieve
  • the types of products being developed
  • how they will work
  • how we will test whether they work

Phase 1 (June 2019 to December 2019)

Following a competed applicated process, 8 projects were selected and allocated (matched) grant funding for Phase 1 to develop their products and / or services ahead of potential household trials in Phase 2.

The competition leads for the 8 projects are:

  • GenGame Limited
  • SENS 2019 Limited (a subsidiary of ONZO Limited)
  • Eliq Limited
  • Lightbulb ES Limited (trading as Igloo Energy Supply Ltd)
  • Element Energy Limited
  • Green Energy Options (GEO) Limited
  • Switchee Limited
  • Energy Local CIC

For full details of competition leads and their partners, along with project summaries - see ‘Phase 1 - Summary of Grant Funded Projects’.

Separately, BEIS has:

i) Commissioned an independent Trial Design and Evaluation Lead (TDEL) to work with successful competition partners, to:

  • develop a trial of their product
  • lead a robust evaluation to identify the impact on household energy consumption
  • implement a package of wider research (with projects and domestic customers participating in the trial). The TDEL consortium is headed up by Ipsos MORI working with the Energy Saving Trust and the University of Edinburgh.

ii) Awarded a grant to the Smart Energy Research Laboratory (SERL) based at University College London, for their provision of energy consumption data from trial households (with customer consent) to the TDEL for their analyses.

Phase 2 (January 2020 - ongoing)

Following a stage-gate review process, 5 projects that had reached a suitable development stage were taken through to Phase 2. This will trial and evaluate their energy saving intervention through large-scale household trials.

The competition leads for the 5 Phase 2 projects are:

  • GenGame Limited
  • Eliq Limited
  • Lightbulb ES Limited (trading as Igloo Energy Supply Ltd)
  • Green Energy Options (GEO) Limited
  • Energy Local CIC

More information

For more information please contact smi@beis.gov.uk.

Published 18 February 2019
Last updated 8 January 2021 + show all updates
  1. SENS overview infographic added.

  2. Phase 1- Summary of Grant Funded Projects added and information about Phase 1.

  3. Competition closed.

  4. Questions and answers added.

  5. Grant award terms and conditions and grant award letter: template, added.

  6. First published.