A new report on SHIMMER, a fuel poverty pilot establishing by a consortium of London partners— Energy Saving Trust, London Rebuilding Society, and HomeZone—and funded by the Technology Strategy Board, concludes that smart home energy management and income maximization services including debt, tax, and benefits advice can help financially depressed households save  potentially thousands of dollars. The pilot also highlights how the social housing sector can offer useful services to their tenants in a more engaging way.

By taking advantage of the Feed-in-Tariff, SHIMMER provides households with solar PV and a smart system that can be accessed online to give the consumer real-time information on energy consumption as well as delivering tailored advice and financial incentives. Results show that SHIMMER’s bundled services have saved participants between £200 and £3500 a year.

Philip Sellwood, Chief Executive of the Energy Saving Trust, notes, “Ultimately, we need to have smart homes, not just smart meters. What this pilot found is that solar PV alone is not sufficient to achieve behavioral change in fuel poor households. SHIMMER ensures savings are optimized by smart use of appliances based on the simple, actionable feedback made possible by the data that’s collected. The full package of financial advice that people could access was absolutely central in compounding the energy savings they made - and we’ve also seen that smart home energy management can be a catalyst for greater digital inclusion.”

The pilot took place in the London boroughs Newham, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Redbridge and Havering, with 18 participants, most of whom were behind in payments with the rest having little if any disposal income. A majority of the participants said they would use their financial savings to invest in energy efficiency measures and home improvements.

London Rebuilding Society CEO Naomi Kingsley, observes, “This was a successful London trial, but we see great potential across the UK. In the long run SHIMMER could become a financial cooperative such as a credit union, which pools the savings users are making to increase their access to credit. It could also become an energy services co-operative. We have established a clear and proven business case and plan for installing solar PV and the SHIMMER system at scale.”

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