CoControl's Connected Homes Platform - Bridging the landlord-tenant divide for the Social Housing Sector

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£342,605

Jan. 1, 2018

Dec. 31, 2018

"CoControl's Connected Homes Platform has a completely different approach to where the key ""value add"" is focussed when smart thermostats are installed in the social housing sector. Rather than the focus being purely the collection of energy savings achieved by individual tenants where the smart thermostats are installed, the real value add is to bridge the landlord-tenant divide so that the incentives for efficient use of heat energy and long-term maintenance of the housing asset are aligned.

The real-time internal temperature, energy use, and humidity data needed to optimise the tenant's heating control are the cornerstone of what the social landlord needs to monitor the condition of their housing assets, and to plan both their short-term maintenance schedules and their long-term strategic asset management budgets. Until now this data has not been available and landlords have had to rely on poor and outdated proxies for the data such as Energy Performance Certificated. This project will demonstrate how CoControl cannot only provide the benefits to the tenants seen in products such as Nest and Hive, but crucially for this sector where there has been no penetration for installs, how the Landlord can realise the benefits from smart thermostats and hence bridge the landlord-tenant divide that currently is preventing installs taking place.

CoControl has worked with 7 social landlords to tailor our product line to the social housing space, with live trials already having demonstrated demand and technical viability. The financial burden on the UK's 8.79m social housing tenants has recently increased due to benefit cuts and reduced rent protection schemes. 43% live in poverty and struggle to balance food and rent with increasingly expensive gas and electricity (JRF, Guardian, DBEIS). Further, social landlords face new 'duty of care' legislation, increasing well-being standards -- in spite of severely decreasing funding: we are 2yrs into a 5yr cycle which has the effect of cutting Social Landlord rent income 12% net of previous forecasts (2015 Summer Budget). In response, CoControl has developed its ""Connected Homes Platform"" an open architecture intelligent, cloud based heating controls, built to minimise tenant energy usage and cost, and empower landlords -- our customers -- to invest their £7.1bn annual maintenance expenditure most effectively. This grant provides a critical proof of the benefits that both the Landlord and the tenant can derive from CoControl's energy system product which will take the software as a service product to commercial readiness."