How electrification is shaping the smart home ecosystem

Pamela Largue (0:12)

As the energy transition progresses, households are becoming active participants in an increasingly decentralized and flexible energy system. But what does this mean in practice? How can consumers bring technologies such as EVs, heat pumps, solar and storage together to reduce costs, improve energy resilience, and make the most of their own generation?

To answer these questions, I had a chat with Andrew Clint, CEO of MyEnergy, about the evolution of the home energy ecosystem. Andrew discusses what is driving household electrification and why consumers are increasingly motivated by the tangible benefits of low energy bills and greater energy independence. We also look at the role of policy in accelerating adoption, the challenges of coordinating multiple home energy technologies, and how smart assets could help deliver much needed flexibility to the grid. I'm Pamela Largue, and this is the Energy Transitions Podcast.

Andrew, thank you so much for joining me today. We're talking about how energy is changing, energy perspectives around the grid, and how homes are potentially changing into these energy ecosystems. So firstly, welcome. Secondly, how is household electrification changing and accelerating, and what technologies are driving that change?

Andrew Clint (1:44)

Yeah, so I think that's a really interesting question, and thank you very much for having me on your podcast.

So I work for a company called MyEnergy, based in the UK, and we were founded just about 10 years ago by Lee Sutton and Jordan Robinson. And Lee is an electrical engineer, and he used to be a solar installer back in the relatively early days of UGCOT solar in the UK.

And one of his clients, one day asked him, what can I do with all of this energy that I'm now generating from my solar power? And why can't I put this energy into my EV? And why can't I power some other devices like my water heating in my house from this engine? And so even back then, it was a question that people were asking, what is this electrification journey really going to mean for me and my home? And on the back of those questions, Lee sat at home over a few nights, and he was thinking about this challenge that he had been given. And he then came up with two products, which we still sell later generations of these products today. One is called EDDI, and that was actually his first product, and that's a solar diverter for heating hot water.

And then the other one is Zappi, which is the world's first solar compatible EV charger. And that really has been the cornerstone of the business all the way through the day.

But I think if we look more generally, now that these sort of technologies like solar PV and electric vehicles have moved from early adopters to much more mainstream, we still see in different markets that we operate in, we see different entry points for consumers thinking about electrifying their home. We operate in UK, some European countries and Australia. The Australian market, that was all about solar PV. That was the entry point. Much more recently, it's become a lot more about EVs because the cost of petrol and diesel has gone up so much following the Iran War, that the percentage of households now getting an EV in Australia has shot through the roof. If we look at the UK, it was much more about EV. So that would be typically the first entry point that households would take into electrifying. Solar still remains a relatively small portion of households in the UK. Look at Netherlands as another example. That's again, be much more about rooftop solar and it's now become very much about batteries. So I think consumers have obviously come into this journey from various different angles, but as soon as you get an EV or you get solar, then you start to think about what tariff do I need to optimize my energy costs. Then you start to think about the other energy assets you can add to your home to make your journey cheaper in a lot of cases. Because a lot of people are now doing this because it costs your costs. They're not doing it so much around climate change or around being a real passionate zealot for going zero carbon in your home. It's become a lot more about cost and cost saving. And we estimate that homes today with full suite of solar panels, battery storage and EV and solar water even can save around about 1800 pounds a year off their electricity bill. So that's getting towards zero bills sort of territory, which I think is a real incentive and real driver for customers to start to adopt more and more of this technology. I think that the other angle of your question is probably about how these assets become part of the energy grid. And that's, I think, an interesting area to unpick because it's still very early stage in consumer's understanding of the energy assets they put into their home.