Onzo has appointed Torchbox Ltd ("Torchbox") to develop the web presence for its home energy monitoring products and services

Onzo is seeking to provide consumers with information about how much energy they use and where they use it, to enable them to reduce their levels of energy usage.  Just as retail, telco and financial services customers get till receipts or loyalty card statements, itemised bills and bank or credit card statements that tell people where they spend their money, Onzo will provide consumers with a detailed breakdown of where and how they are using energy.

Torchbox will be working with Onzo to develop a website through which consumers can access more detailed information about their energy usage than that which can be provided on a dedicated energy display device.  The website will significantly extend Onzo’s proposition, by providing an aid to the consumer to reduce their energy usage.

Joel Hagan, Chief Executive of Onzo, said: "We chose Torchbox because they met all of our requirements: they provide an integrated design and development service; they take a user-centred design approach; they have experience with websites like ours that require a lot of data processing in the background to ensure useful information reaches consumers; and they are keen to work on projects that have a beneficial impact on the environment."

Olly Willans, Managing Director of Torchbox said: "We're very excited about this new relationship with Onzo. The challenge of engaging people with visualisations of their home energy use to help them learn how to save money and vital energy resources is a dream job for us.  We’re impressed that Onzo has created the opportunity to make this mainstream and reach large numbers of consumers."

Onzo

Onzo provides consumers with information on their energy use and the help they need to reduce it so they can become more environmentally friendly and lower their bills.  The global company offers innovative products and services that include real-time energy displays, a website and printed energy usage reports.  Onzo’s area of expertise is consumer-led Demand Reduction Management, working with energy companies to improve their relationship with their customers, extend their customer offering, and meet emissions reduction targets.  Onzo has recently announced that Scottish & Southern Energy, the UK’s second largest energy supplier, has placed orders totalling more than £7m.
Onzo - live lighter, live smarter.  For more information, please visit www.onzo.co.uk.

Torchbox

Established in 2000, Torchbox is an independent digital design and technology agency. We design good-looking, high performance, accessible websites and build robust, scalable web applications. We work with our clients to understand what’s really important to their users: building on this understanding and taking a long-term, strategic approach to web development – based on regular review and incremental improvement – is key to a successful partnership. Torchbox's clients include the University of Oxford, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and WWF.
For more information and contact information visit www.torchbox.com

Enquiries

Onzo    Joel Hagan    T: 020 3051 3270
Spark    Kewal Varia    T: 020 7436 0420

Onzo has appointed LShift Ltd ("LShift") to develop software for its home energy monitoring products and services.

Onzo has appointed LShift Ltd ("LShift") to develop software for its home energy monitoring products and services.

Onzo is seeking to provide consumers of energy with information about their use of that energy so that they can improve and reduce their use of it, just as retail, telco and financial services customers get till receipts or loyalty card statements, itemised bills and bank or credit card statements that tell people where they spend their money.

LShift will be working with Onzo to develop the architecture of its client/server system and deliver the software that runs it.  LShift will develop desktop and server software to enable raw data to be returned and processed before being provided to consumers in a useful and usable format through a website and in energy usage reports which can be combined with bills.

Joel Hagan, Chief Executive of Onzo, said: "'We are very pleased to bring LShift into the Onzo team. They have extensive experience in exactly the right areas for us: enterprise software in high availability environments, with high levels of interaction with customers, the difficult work of joining up highly scaleable systems with direct customer interaction software, and integration with legacy systems. They bring their considerable intellect to bear on these challenges."

Mike Rowlands, Executive Director of LShift said: "Onzo have achieved something very unusual in the energy conservation market: they have designed a high-value, technically sophisticated system along with beautiful consumer devices that people will really want to have in their homes. We are delighted to be working with them."

Onzo

Onzo provides consumers with information on their energy use and the help they need to reduce it so they can become more environmentally friendly and lower their bills.  The global company offers innovative products and services that include real-time energy displays, a website and printed energy usage reports.  Onzo’s area of expertise is consumer-led Demand Reduction Management, working with energy companies to improve their relationship with their customers, extend their customer offering, and meet emissions reduction targets.  Onzo has recently announced that Scottish & Southern Energy, the UK’s second largest energy supplier, has placed orders totalling more than £7m.
Onzo - live lighter, live smarter.  For more information, please visit www.onzo.co.uk

LShift

LShift is one of the UK’s leading software consultancies, offering application development, integration and management services. The company creates and implements bespoke software systems and complex integrations on networked platforms ranging from mobile phones to cashpoint machines. It numbers Barclays Bank, The Chartered Insurance Institute, Discovery Channel, Dorling Kindersley, Habitat, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Vodafone and Yahoo! amongst its clients.
For more information and contact information visit www.lshift.net

Enquiries

Onzo    Joel Hagan    T: 020 3051 3270
Spark    Kewal Varia    T: 020 7436 0420

Onzo will use technology from Sentec Ltd ("Sentec") to let consumers see how much energy is used by appliances in their homes without the need to monitor every single appliance.

Onzo has signed an agreement with Sentec to incorporate Sentec's appliance inference software ("Coracle") into Onzo's products and services that help consumers reduce their energy demand. The agreement gives Onzo, and its client Scottish & Southern Energy ("SSE"), exclusive access to Sentec's Coracle technology in the UK and Ireland ahead of smart metering.

Coracle takes data on whole house usage and disaggregates this into use by different appliances.  Consumers can then see what is driving their energy use without the need to monitor every single appliance.

The two companies have agreed to work together on the development of Coracle.  They are also cooperating on business development opportunities for their joint solution around the world.  Every country faces pressure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and empowering consumers to play their part in this is vital.

Joel Hagan, Chief Executive of Onzo, said: "We are delighted to be working in partnership with a company that has an excellent record for technical innovation in the utility sector. What Sentec has developed fits perfectly with our desire to enable consumers to help themselves, saving money and the planet."

Tom Fryers, Commercial Director of Sentec said: "Onzo's contract with SSE allows us to get Coracle working for consumers as quickly as possible and will give people the tools they need to reduce their energy consumption.  Onzo is a good partner for us because they are able to take our technical innovation and package it into a solution that works for utilities and their customers."

Onzo

Onzo provides consumers with information on their energy use and the help they need to reduce it so they can become more environmentally friendly and lower their bills.  The global company offers innovative products and services that include real-time energy displays, a website and printed energy usage reports.  Onzo's area of expertise is consumer-led Demand Reduction Management, working with energy companies to improve their relationship with their customers, extend their customer offering, and meet emissions reduction targets.  Onzo has recently announced that Scottish & Southern Energy, the UK's second largest energy supplier, has placed orders totalling more than £7m.
Onzo - live lighter, live smarter.  For more information, please visit www.onzo.co.uk.

Sentec

Sentec is a leading research organisation specialising in the utility metering sector.
Founded in 1997, we established an outstanding track record in creating and developing the new technologies that underpin modern utility metering in gas, water and electricity.
For more information about Sentec and our solutions, please visit www.sentec.co.uk.

Enquiries

Onzo    Joel Hagan    T: 020 3051 3270
Spark    Kewal Varia    T: 020 7436 0420

Scottish and Southern Energy plc (“SSE”) and Sigma Capital Group plc (“Sigma”) have agreed to invest £2m in Onzo, a company that enables energy customers to reduce their energy consumption.

Based in London, Onzo is a new company whose purpose is to empower people to live lighter and smarter in terms of their energy consumption. Onzo specialises in energy visualization technologies across all customer touchpoints and offers energy monitoring equipment and related services through bills and the internet. Onzo partners with energy suppliers to create stronger two-way relationships between suppliers and energy users and increase customer attraction and retention, minimise cost to serve, and increase revenue per customer.

Onzo will be launching its innovative energy display products later this year. With increasing awareness on the part of consumers of both the economic cost and the CO2 impact of energy consumption, Onzo are expecting widespread consumer interest. Onzo believes that its energy display products can help save consumers around a quarter of their home energy consumption.  

Sigma, investing from the Sigma Sustainable Energy Fund II, and SSE have each invested £1 million . Sigma and SSE will also both provide non-executive directors who will join Onzo’s board. In addition, SSE has placed initial orders worth over £7 million with Onzo for the company’s energy display products and specialist data services. As part of this major order, SSE has secured exclusive rights to Onzo’s products and services covering the UK and Ireland.

Joel Hagan, Chief Executive of Onzo, said,

“Onzo is delighted to be working with SSE to make our products and services available to consumers in the UK and Ireland.  In SSE, we found a partner who was excited about the full range of what we can offer.  Sigma Capital Group helped bring the deal together and their support has been critical throughout the process.  This deal is recognition that Onzo leads the way in this arena.”

David Gardner, Head of Ventures at SSE, said,

 “Energy customers have a growing expectation that their supplier will provide new ways to help them reduce their energy consumption, and in the future this could become an important service differentiator. This partnership with Onzo will give SSE access to leading-edge technologies that will help us provide a new level of support to customers who want to reduce their energy consumption.

“Until now the SSE ventures team have focused on investments relating to alternative energy sources. This deal, which is a great example of our partnership with Sigma, demonstrates that SSE is prepared to invest in any strong proposition that directly supports our strategic aim of ensuring that SSE plays a major part in the long-term transformation of the production and consumption of energy.”

Mark Hogarth, Investment Director of Sigma, said,
 
“This is a very exciting investment for us and we are delighted to be co-investors in Onzo with Scottish and Southern Energy plc. We think Onzo has developed an innovative and commercially focused concept which has huge potential and stands out from other companies in this space.

Consumers are now much more sensitive to ‘green’ issues and, at the same time, people are keen to reduce their energy bills.  This means that Onzo’s products have a double appeal. Onzo has a great team with great ideas and we look forward to working with them, alongside SSE, on the next phase of the company’s development.”

 

Enquiries

Joel Hagan, Onzo Ltd, 020 3051 3270

Kewal Varia, Spark PR, 020 7436 0420

Download

This press release can also be downloaded in Microsoft Word format here

Energy display company criticises Government's plans to mandate clip-on electricity monitors

LONDON, UK, 18 October 2007 – Onzo, a provider of domestic energy displays, has today criticised the Government's proposed mandatory supply of clip-on electricity monitors set out in the Energy White Paper. The company agrees with the Energy Retail Association (ERA) that a large-scale roll-out of clip-on monitors will represent a significant cost to the industry that undermines its ability to invest for the future and, most importantly, the proposed roll-out will not deliver sufficient benefits to the consumer. Instead, Onzo is lobbying the Government to focus on mandating an accelerated national roll-out of smart meters with energy displays, ensuring the best platform for an effective and user-friendly source of accurate information to help consumers reduce their energy usage.

Joel Hagan, CEO of Onzo, said, “We're all agreed that something really needs to be done to reduce domestic energy use, and the sooner the better. The key to this is putting useful information in the hands of the consumer through dedicated energy displays.

“As things stand there are no tests for the quality and usefulness of displays and no standards are being enforced so there’s too high a chance that the Government’s plans will backfire and ensure that low quality displays are put into consumers’ homes as energy companies seek to minimise the cost of compliance.  This will undermine their potential to reduce domestic energy usage, contribute to the UK’s carbon footprint rather than improve it, and put the UK behind other countries in the world that are already leading the way and installing smart meters.

“The infrastructure that underpins smart metering brings the largest benefit to all stakeholders: Government, consumers and the energy industry, so it makes sense to get the roll-out moving as soon as possible.  We recommend a seven year period to 31st December 2014. The idea of energy displays that help consumers understand how they use energy should not be abandoned; it should be integral to the smart meter roll-out.  By requiring that smart meters and energy displays comply with an open communications protocol, the Government can encourage diversity and competition in the provision of displays.”

Duncan Sedgwick, Chief Executive of the Energy Retail Association said, “Energy providers recognise they have a significant role to play in encouraging their customers to reduce their carbon footprints. However, we believe that the Government's plan to mandate free electricity display devices for all customers, in advance of smart metering, will not achieve the desired objectives. This proposal is a distraction to the roll out of smart meters, which crucially include gas as well as electricity, as the devices will be redundant when smart meters are installed. Now is the golden opportunity for the Government to give us the green light on smart meters and we welcome this support from a leading display device provider, which is taking a long term view in support of the industry and the consumer rather than seeking a short term advantage for themselves.”


About the Energy Retailers Association:
The Energy Retail Association (ERA), formed in 2003, represents Britain's main electricity and gas suppliers in the domestic market. The ERA works closely with government, NGOs, charities and other organisations in England, Scotland and Wales to ensure a coordinated approach to dealing with the key issues affecting our industry and the British consumer. All the main energy suppliers operating in the residential market in Great Britain are members of the association - British Gas, EDF Energy, npower, Powergen, Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy.

About Onzo:
Onzo (www.onzo.co.uk) are experts in the visualisation of energy.  They provide domestic energy displays that enable energy companies to build more valuable relationships with their customers.

Two-way EDD given £250K research grant

A consortium set up to develop an electricity display device (EDD) that gives consumers historical as well as real-time consumption data and transmits the data to the energy supplier over the internet has been awarded a £250,00 grant by the Technology Strategy Board.

The project is led by Onzo, a company set up to develop ways of changing consumer behaviour and so reduce domestic energy consumption. A key objection to existing devices is that they do not show historical consumption or communicate with the energy supplier.

"It's really difficult for people to know what to do in their everyday lives to increase their energy efficiency," said Luke Nicholson, creative director of Onzo. "We're responding to this by providing a simple platform that will enable easy, effective behaviour change. The aim is to deliver demonstrable energy savings of 20-30 per cent from behavioural efficiency."