Oxford spin-out to make smart metering smarter

Intelligent Sustainable Energy (ISE) Ltd, a spin-out from Oxford University, has been set up with funding from Navetas Energy Management to develop a smart metering technology. This will allow households to monitor which appliances are consuming electricity in real-time and over time, delivering the data through PCs and mobiles, or, for the first time, via itemised electricity bills.

The technology was developed by Malcolm McCulloch and Jim Donaldson in Oxford’s Department of Engineering. The meter is designed to identify both short and long-term energy savings, by providing information about specific appliances “If the amount of electricity your washing machine uses increases considerably, this might indicate that it will be more cost-effective and carbon-efficient to replace it,” said McCulloch. Similarly, if there’s a spike in the amount used by the fridge, “maybe the door has been left open.”

Jim Donaldson, Chief Technical Officer said the aim is to give people the ability to gain control of their energy use, by enabling them to measure how changes in the way they use appliances reduces consumption. “The ISE smart meter is smarter than your average smart meter in that it can identify different appliances, including hardwired appliances like cookers or hot water heaters, from their electricity use profiles, and feed that information back to the consumer.”

Funding for ISE has come energy management company Navetas. Isis Innovation, Oxford’s technology transfer company, says it identified Navetas as being a key investor in order to  industrialise and commercialise the technology. Isis will exclusively licence the intellectual property behind the new smart metering technology to ISE.

Chris Shelley, Director of Navetas Energy Management said the company has a long standing interest in the development of technology which provides consumers with more information about energy use. “Consumers need a device that provides information which they can actually act upon to reduce their energy consumption.”

“Navetas will play a role of more than just investors in this technology. We will also be providing commercial expertise in the field of energy management and smart metering.”

A prototype ISE smart meter has been successfully tested at Oxford. The company plans to undertake further trials and refine the design to industrialise smart metering products and to offer licences. It anticipates that ISE intelligent smart meter technology will be on the market by 2010.