EVEN SMARTER ENERGY CONSUMPTION

The next step in intelligent heating systems will be to tailor-make energy use to align better with demand from the grid. The big energy companies are readying themselves for ‘time of use tariffs’ with different rates according to demand, to incentivise consumers to use energy at certain times of the day: the idea is that it eases pressure on the UK’S infrastructure, and lowers household bills. For example, in the future, on an especially windy day when there’s excess electricity being generated, a message might pop up on your phone asking whether you’d like to heat your hot-water tank at an especially tempting rate (or even for free).

Time-of-use tariffs are only possible with the roll-out of smart meters, and there aren’t too many about at the moment. One of them is Octopus’s Agile tariff, which offers half-hourly prices for electricity. Customers can check the next day’s prices via an app, and adjust their power consumption accordingly.

It’s expected that such tariffs will really come into their own when they are combined with automated controls in the future. So, say, your electric car will only charge overnight at flexible times that you won’t even have to think about pre-programming.

Evergreen Energy has developed a smart energy system that reduces consumer energy bills by making it easy for people to raise or lower their energy use at certain times. This all helps to balance the electricity network and drive savings for consumers.