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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - e4SME (Utilities engaging SMEs with end-to-end Energy Management Experiences)

Teaser

Summary

Utilities today are facing disruption form all sides: Load stagnation, financial and regulatory pressures, competition and new markets entrants and increasingly demanding customers. Utilities must therefore fight against lower incomes and higher churn rates using customer-centric digital engagement tools.

One of the most rapidly growing customer segments is made up of Small & Medium enterprises (SMEs), who lack time and resources to pore over detailed energy management analytic tools as larger corporations do, even when they are even more sensitive to energy as running cost.

Engaging SME customers on a more personnel level with innovative and simplified on-line tools in their energy management can open up significant opportunities for utilities, helping them realizing their customer-centric â€œ New Dealâ€ and meeting their increasingly stringent energy efficiency/ carbon emissions goals. Two technological factors can help both utilities and SMEs, the rollout of electricity and gas smart meters across Europe and the digitalisation of customer service channels via mobile apps and web.

e4SME will help utilities boost SME engagement by helping them identify scalable energy savings and reducing their customer churn. To this end, the objective of e4SME solution is to target and segment SMEs by energy savings potential and opportunity type, identifying unique operational and retrofit opportunities from smart meter data.

Work performed

From the beginning of the project, the following results have been achieved so far:

1. A first version of e4SME platform have been deployed following these key points:
- Integration of multiple inputs and outputs (Static bills, real time energy data, metadata, new modules calculations such as Energy Performance Metrics, Recommender, NILM etc)
- Aspects such as security, scalability, availability have been defined for the platform.
- Several querying interfaces (Application programming interfaces) have been developed to allow output data to be extracted.

2. Energy Performance Metrics module has been developed successfully following these key points:
- Establishment of reference values by means of validating DEXMAâ€™s database with the data from a utility and public data bases.
- Development of three submodules that composes EPM module: Patterns + Clustering + Benchmarking modules.
- Test and verification of the EPM module and its integration with the whole solution.

3. Load disaggregation models (for both lite and advanced NILM engines) have been developed:
- Load disaggregation lite model for 5 activities, with 4 outputs and following AI methodologies.
- Load disaggregation advanced model (proof of concept) for several activities, with 3 outputs and following AI methodologies.

4. Recommender Lite module (for both lite and advanced modules) have been developed:
- Recommender lite that calculates low-resolution retrofits (i.e substitution to LED technology, improvement of building insulation, HVAC time scheduling, set point adjustment, userâ€™s training etc)
- Recommender advanced that calculates high-resolution retrofits (i.e PV installations, capacitor banks for reactive power compensation, demand load optimisation etc)

5. A first user interface has been developed for e4SME solution (EPM & Recommender module, Reports), for utilities and end users (SMEs) taking into account userâ€™s experience and feedback.

6. Five utilities have agreed to join the demonstration phase that will test e4SME tool within a minimum amount of 287 SMEs. The validation plan of demonstration has been defined with them.Possible future customers/users of e4SME solution have come up too.

7. A new brand identity has been created for commercializing e4SME solution (DEXMA Detect).

8. A business plan for e4SME solution (DEXMA Detect) has been defined together with a communication plan and dissemination activities for promoting e4SME project outcomes.

Final results

The hardware-free e4SME approach goes beyond the state of the art of existing solutions thanks to:

1. Performance: >80% accuracy in energy disaggregation vs competitors who tend to focus on appliance discovery (TV, lighting, air conditioning, etc.) in the residential sector.

2. Cost: Nearly 0. 60-80% cheaper than traditional models. Leverages smart meter deployment.

3. Ease of use: Eliminates need for on-site audit or HW installation thereby reducing maintenance and enabling automatic updates (SaaS model). Easy roll-out to utility SME customer base.

4. Climate change: Since a software solution is easier and faster to scale than hardware, more overall energy savings can be achieved. Plus, LCA impact is lower for software compared to hardware.

5. European Unionâ€™s challenges and policies: EU Sustainable development goals number 9 for Utilities and 11 for SMEs (Industry innovation and infrastructure & sustainable cities and communities) respectively will be address within e4SME
solution allowing utilities to move to an AI-driven solution and SMEs to save energy and money.

6. Gender issues: Equality policy upon recruitment in DEXMA has been followed in order to promote gender balance in the team and among the leading roles.

Till the end of the project, DEXMA expects to create a robust software solution for power utilities (as e4SME customers) that will be able to boost engagement with SMEs (end users) by helping them identify and scale their energy savings. To this end, e4SME will target and segment utilitiesâ€™ SME customer base by energy savings potential and opportunity type, identifying unique operational and retrofit opportunities in minutes. Based on just meter consumption data and easy to reach additional metadata, e4SME will provide utilities with portfolio-wide insights to engage SME customers on a one-to-one basis with personalized energy efficiency recommendations. e4SME simultaneously provides utilities with a powerful consumer engagement tool, and helps SMEs save energy in a very competitive landscape with its associated socio-economic impact.

DEXMA is already a scaling global business with a team of specialists dedicated to build and sell e4SME tool, DEXMA Detect at worldwide scale. During the coming months together with the end up of the technical developments and the test carried out with top Worldwide Utilities, DEXMA will use its current strengths (distribution channels, reputation) together with market conditions, advancement of smart meter rollout and national regulations to recover payback via annual licenses and retrofit commissions, trying to reach around 3 million of SMES in 5 years.