Peter Davies is the Founder and CEO of Verv, the clever home energy assistant. Verv delivers a home energy system that uses cutting-edge AI technology to identify appliances in your home by their unique energy signatures and tells how much each one is costing to use – all in real-time. Verv simultaneously saves on electricity bills and reduces excessive energy consumption.
What does your organisation do and how is it challenging the industry status quo?
Verv has created a peer-to-peer renewable energy trading platform that’s based on the blockchain. It leverages the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning in the Internet of Things (IoT) hub that we’ve built, which sits in the home.
It challenges the status quo by enabling consumers with solar panels on their roofs to sell any excess energy that they generate directly to their neighbours at the best economic value for both parties.
Why is this disruptive model critical for tackling environmental challenges?
Our energy trading platform improves access to affordable, green energy for the masses, encouraging wider use.
In parallel, it incentivises the uptake of renewables by enabling households with solar panels or other sources to get payback on them, thus increasing the return on investment.
With the government having announced that it intends to remove the Feed-in-Tariff in April 2019, it’s crucial that other incentives are put in place so that the uptake of renewables continues to grow.
How do you build public support for rapid disruption of established business models?
By proving that we can save up to 30per cent on their existing bills with a light touch interaction, we have already seen significant interest from both the public and private sector.
Once regulation has been established, I believe people will be more comfortable with using disruptive technology like this, especially once they understand the benefits.
What advice would you give to a green start-up looking to shake up a market today?
The time is now! The industry is going through a huge change with a focus on decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitisation.
There has never been a better moment to try and shake up the market.
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