Electric Places is planning a mixed-use development within which there will be local power generation, storage, and peer-to-peer supply. The development is seeking an innovative intergrated management system that can locally balance and manage disparate and varied energy systems while assuring suitable grid connectivity as and when needed.

Electric Places is planning a predominantly domestic mixed-use development that would include some commercial assets. The domestic elements will be approximately 42 homes comprising individual houses across a range of sizes, and some apartment/multi-occupancy buildings. The development will have embedded solar generation, heat pumps, and battery storage at building and community scale. A grid connection will be required to allow for shortfalls in local generation.
The site will require an single innovative system that can integrate and balance the generating assets, storage, and usage requirements in a technology agnostic manner. The ability to monitor demand-side requirements, both at peaks and troughs or drop-offs, at building-level to provide energy management at community-level is key.&nbsp;
The system should also allow for the growth in local generating assets and be able to link to the main grid and Distribution Network Operator (DNO) as well as any emerging local sub-systems. In doing so, it will manage relationship with local and external energy providers to support the mini grid and ensure security of supply. Moreover, the system will provide best value and usage flexibility for the community residents while reducing dependence on main grid supply.

Short Description

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Electric Places has the ambition to develop grid-independent communities that provide affordable and flexible energy access to its residents. The company has already completed one such development and is seeking to build on that experience gained and deploy a system to track and optimise energy across the estate.&nbsp;
As well as providing resident homes and businesses with lower energy costs and fair reward to any local power generation the system will provide assurance to the relevant DNO of the stability of supply within the mini grid. This strengthens the case that a 100% supply back-up from the DNO is not required, and thus helps address the grid constraints that impact both new community developments and the installation of renewable energy assets.
Electric Places are looking for a single or intergrated system with a simple-to-use control for the homeowner. This will potentially be an app and/or building integrated GUI linked to a full control software system that can manage all the various household device inputs and outputs to create a level of balance as well as optimising for cost.
The system would be multi level with:
<ul>
<li>Home systems to balance and manage peaks and troughs. Will connect a wide range of household devices in plug-and-play manner, especially high users like heat pumps and car charging.</li>
<li>Community level management to manage outputs and demands from the home, and intergrate them in to a community-led system. This will balance and optimise community power consumption and local grid management.</li>
<li>Grid level, enabling communities to feed in to, or reduce draw on, the main grid so as to minimise costs and main grid dependency. It will also manage any local or main grid power outages by balancing available supply and demand across the systems.&nbsp; &nbsp; The above is to be delivered against a need to understand consumer needs and wants within the system thus enabling them to exercise an appropriate degree of energy self-control.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Electric Places is looking for innovators and companies that can provide intergrated low carbon control systems. They should be agile enough to work with a built environment planned to incorporate and exploit emerging technologies, both physical and digital, to the full. The company would be very interested in any partnering or collaboration agreements with providers who may only be able to provide for parts of the systems or the regulatory and licensing requirement. Any pre-existing collaborations or those formed for the purpose of this challenge and can address the whole requirement would also be considered.

Background

A mixed-use development comprising approximately 40+ homes split between houses and apartments. Both private and social ownership are considered as is the provision of some limited commercial units e.g cafes or small shops. This will be served by:
<ul>
<li>Multi level system to manage power in and power out from energy consumers and energy sources</li>
<li>Single point of management for home linked to an inteligent community level system to ensure people can personally manage their own environment on a single piece of software.</li>
<li>Secure and GDPR compliant controls and software for all levels.</li>
<li>Home and business owners ability to operate freely and get best value as well as manage their energy in a more responsible way.</li>
<li>Beyond cost and flexibility benefitsIt should provide for a lifestyle approach indistinguishable from a convential grid system.</li>
<li>Embedded override systems operated manually for the home users. &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
The scale of the project;
Seaton is a new build sustainable housing scheme of 42 individual homes plus a &ldquo;common house&rdquo; / central caf&eacute; bistro. The scheme will have circa 543kW of solar with a communal BESS (Battery Energy Storage System &ndash; size currently being configured) and EV charging at a central hub and some of the homes. All properties will have MVHR systems, IR heating and Hot Water Heat Pump (HWHP &ndash; combined ASHP and water tank).

Functional Requirements

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Multi level system consisting of:
&nbsp;
Front end control interface, potentially a mobile app for users in the home and a system to manage the community.
The system must have open API&rsquo;s that allow, inter alia, the following assets to be plugged in and include updating when necessary:
<ul>
<li>Solar PV panels</li>
<li>Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)</li>
<li>Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs)</li>
<li>Infrared heating panels</li>
<li>In-home battery storage</li>
<li>Community-level battery storage</li>
<li>Electric vehicle chargers</li>
<li>In-home energy management software platform</li>
<li>Community-level energy management software platform &nbsp;</li>
<li>Home management, priority is the large consumers like heat pumps and cars.</li>
<li>Community management, looking after an area, manageing energy in and out of systems as well as trading energy and correct billing to houses which may include consuming and delivering back energy.</li>
<li>Grid level system to manage the grid energy on demand, return of surplus energy and intergrating with the community to ensure that all billing and energy payments are correct and meet with the energy supplied from homes, community and grid. &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Uninterupted communications and uptime is essential with the provision of failsafe for when outages occur. As part of a demonstrator, it will be required to give as much information on how the reliability will be assured; demonstrable track record is strongly recommended.
&nbsp;
It is desireable for the system to be able to identify:
<ul>
<li>Fault in systems through monitoring of the various inputs and outputs against expected outcomes.</li>
<li>Faults in major parts of the system including significant failures at all levels.</li>
<li>Manage identification of maintaiance requirements and inform competent support.</li>
<li>Faults would be expected from solar, battery and other generating systems as well as large consumers on home levels like heat pumps, cars Etc.</li>
<li>Future proofing including Vehicle to X as well as being able to monitor household equipment that is designed for home management systems. &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Household equipment, this would be expected to be large consumers from heat pump down to fridges and freezers.
Common low power consumers like TV, phone charging Etc would not expect to be in the main system.
The system will need to be robust and would need to be carefully monitored for reliability, the project is looking for a high level of reliability through design.
As this will be a demonstrator site, consortia would be welcome.

Technical Requirements

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<ul>
<li>To be part of a housing development with innovators suggesting the best location within buildings and infrastructure and methods for optimum performance and reliability.</li>
<li>Low carbon energy systems agnostic and adaptable to the choosen configuration of the building being managed.</li>
<li>It is accepted that systems may include management software and appropriate hardware for linking to installed appliances.</li>
<li>All systems must be compliant to the relevant building regulations and meet the legislative requirements.</li>
<li>Instalations must be able to meet the requirements of household metering systems.</li>
</ul>

Operating conditions

<ul>
<li>Solutions that can not demonstrate a robust reliability record.</li>
<li>Inflexible architecture.</li>
<li>Systems that do not, or could not meet Cyber Essentials guidelines.</li>
<li>TRL 8 or 9 for delivery in home usage.</li>
</ul>
The developer must be able to deploy on a larger scale and own full rights with an expectation of warranty support and service level agreements.

Out of Scope

<ul>
<li>Launch of the Competition &ndash; December 5th 2023</li>
<li>Deadline for applications &ndash; &nbsp;Friday 26th January 2024</li>
<li>Selection and notification of finalists - Friday 9th feb. 2024</li>
<li>Date of Pitch Day &ndash; W/C 26th feb 2024</li>
<li>Solutions should be considered deployable for &ndash; Q3 2024 for building installation.</li>
</ul>

Deployment timescales

Successful applicants will be given an opportunity to pitch to (the Challenge Holder). The package may also include:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Support from Innovate UK KTN.</li>
<li>Support in the development of a prototype or pilot.</li>
<li>Technical support.</li>
<li>Invitation to attend or present at Innovate UK KTN events.</li>
<li>A potential business collaboration.</li>
<li>Investor introductions (if investment is required).</li>
<li>Support if any Innovate UK or similar competitions are relevant.</li>
</ul>

Rewards and benefits

<ul>
<li>Opportunity to collaborate with an experienced leader in eco housing and energy communities.</li>
<li>Potential for market exposure and scaling of your technology in new developments</li>
<li>Contribution to sustainable, low carbon residential solutions</li>
<li>Competitive financial rewards for successful solutions</li>
</ul>

Market Opportunity

Entrants to this competition expected to be:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Established businesses, Test houses, academic institutions, startups, SMEs or individual entrepreneurs</li>
<li>UK based or have the intention to set up a UK base&nbsp; &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Applications will be assessed on:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Relevance to the topic.</li>
<li>Innovative nature of the subject.</li>
<li>Coherence of the proposed business model.</li>
<li>Feasibility/ economic viability.</li>
<li>Development potential.</li>
<li>Maturity of project/solution.</li>
<li>Ability to launch project quickly/Ease of implementation.</li>
<li>Price/quality ratio.</li>
<li>Suitability for the UK and European Market.</li>
</ul>

Eligibility and selection criteria

<ul>
<li>Existing background IP associated with a potential solution will remain with Solution Provider(s). Where any new IP generation is envisaged, it will be subject to the mutual IP agreement of the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.</li>
<li>Any commercial deployment of a transferred solution or newly developed solution, through licensing, joint venture, partnership or direct investment, will be subject to the commercial agreement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.</li>
<li>Where necessary, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) may be signed to uphold confidentiality in the engagement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger. (This would be expected to be after company selection, it is suggested that details of IP be not disclosed, focus on the outcomes of the technology proposed).</li>
<li>Innovate UK and KTN do not take any share of IP ownership or enter into commercial ventures through the iX programme.</li>
</ul>

IP and Commercial route

A selected panel of assessors will review and score your application. The panel of assessors will meet and agree a consensus score. Successful solutions will be selected by the Challenge holder. Success will be based upon total consensus scores, a portfolio approach and capacity within the challenge holders to carry out the projects.

Balanced Local Smart Grids for Communities

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Opportunity

Challenge opens

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Benefit

Short Description

This challenge is brought to you by:

Balanced Local Smart Grids for Communities