Home > News > Living Lab now includes 2,000 homes

Over 2,000 households have volunteered to join Energy Systems Catapult’s Living Lab.

The Living Lab project started in 2017 with 100 homes, providing a real-world test environment where innovators can rapidly design, market-test and launch energy products, services, and business models.

Energy Systems Catapult has welcomed volunteer households from a variety of property types across the UK – from mid-terrace houses, to blocks of flats – and has 1,358 digitally connected homes in England, 549 in Scotland, 110 in Wales, and 22 in Northern Ireland. The West Midlands and the South East of England are the regions with the most homes in the Living Lab.

Energy innovations

The Living Lab has played a leading role in the testing, development, and understanding of clean tech innovations and their impact on consumer behaviour. In addition to the quantitative assessments of a product or service, the consumer insights team is able to qualitatively understand how consumers felt about using an innovation and its impact on their day-to-day lives.

Scottish innovator arbnco trialled a new digital air quality platform with consumers in the Living Lab with the aim of reducing indoor air pollution, improving ventilation, and safeguarding health. Meanwhile, Amp X, has trialled its digital energy assistant ‘ALICE’ in 60 Living Lab homes to better understand how homes can reduce their energy costs and carbon intensity.

Dr Irene Di Martino, Head of Amp X, said:

Consumer engagement is a key barrier to demand–response as a scalable non–wire alternative. Energy Systems Catapult’s analysis helped us validate what features of our solution work best for different user–types and properties to help sell the benefits to the consumer market.

Becky Sweeney, Business Leader – Homes at Energy Systems Catapult, said:

A new idea or whizzy bit of kit may work well in a test lab, but we want to know if it really makes a difference – to real people, with real demands on their time, and real budgets.

Our pioneering Living Lab is helping the UK’s clean tech innovators to unleash their creativity and advance technologies that place our journey to Net Zero at their heart, without losing sight of the needs of the end-consumer.

With over 2,000 digitally connected homes – and more and more households showing their interest every day-, there is no better place for clean tech innovators to test, trial, and develop their products and services in a real-world environment