Our Strategy

Our vision for the future is to see energy as a service, enabled by SMART technology. SMART meters are an essential step on this journey to a a shared energy future, specifically in the domestic market.

We are currently trialling our chosen SMART technology, which will allow households and businesses to track and manage energy consumption on their smartphone – removing the need for an in-home display. The insight produced from this trial will enable us to help deliver a truly tailored product for our customers.

The growth potential for the UK EV market is compelling, with 25% growth forecast by 2030. EV charging is a key proof point of the shift to a sharing energy economy. In platforms such as Zap-Map, in which we have taken a major stake, businesses and households can open up their charge points to the app’s growing number of monthly users. From hotel and leisure destinations to workplace charging, we are working with businesses to put our EV charging knowledge and proposition into action to support the acceleration in EV ownership.

We continue to work with multiple partners to bring our decentralised energy vision to life. Find out about recent partnerships with BELECTRIC, Powerstar, Creative Carbon Scotland and British Airways i360 in our Press Releases. Other partners are highlighted in our 2018 Annual Report and our 2018 Purpose Report.

2018 Annual report

2018 purpose report

The HAVEN project researches vehicle to home energy sharing and how clean transport and the smart home can interact. We’re working closely with Honda, Upside Energy and the University of Salford on the project, which explores how an EV battery could be attached to home energy systems, such as solar panels, heating and hot water. Watch how our battery storage and home energy services proposition is coming to life.

Our ability to integrate supply and energy services solutions for our customers is a vital next step on our energy journey, within which our partnership with Zap-Map will play a key part. For example, Zap-Map’s Zap Home feature enables owners of private chargers to share electricity with other Zap-Map registered drivers, setting access times and costs with some offering electricity for free. To build on this capability, we’ll be working with Zap-Map on energy tariffs, billing processes and overall energy consumption analysis.

In 2018 we extended our partnership with environmental educational charity, the Eden Project, to include a battery storage trial. This battery storage trial project is allowing us to test and bring to market a scalable battery storage proposition for businesses. We view commercial battery storage as another area of growth in the future energy market.

Our Home Innovation Trial, which ran in 2018, was part of the European-wide BestRes project to better understand energy usage and management in the home. Each household that took part was provided with a smart hub and linked app measuring energy usage by type of appliance. We used the data to create engaging content to educate people about where they were using the most energy and where they could change their usage behavior to make savings.