Rewarding students for saving energy

The Objective

We were approached by Amber Energy to build The Student Energy Project. The objective of the project was to collect data on student energy consumption and reward users for making an eff ort to improve their personal C02 footprint.

The Outcome:

The platform allows students to view valuable insight into their energy usage at halls. An algorithm collects raw data from student block energy and water meters, which is then normalised against degree days and weather factors, cross referenced with historical and occupancy data, and then stored in a MongoDB database.

The student can download the TSEP mobile app, link their account to their student halls and collect points for saving energy. The app also allows the students to see otherwise unavailable data, so they can hit their personal sustainability targets, and collect rewards for doing so. Our CTO Owen recently wrote an article for Computer Weekly on the outcome here.

In the past 10 months since launch we’ve processed and normalized 160,000 points of consumption data through an algorithm helping almost 2,000 students save energy and claim rewards. The user base is set to grow significantly for the next academic year.