UK

The UK will become a key market for the 700 million connected homes expected by 2020. This is according to a new research by CP Consulting, which reveals the latest attitudes of UK consumers towards Connected Home products. In the research titled 'Connected Home: Consumers' Attitudes Towards the Connected Home in the UK', they estimated that 47.6 percent of UK consumers aged 25 to 44 are planning to buy at least one Connected Home product over the next 12 months.

After one year of gathering feedback, Ofcom, the UK’s telecom regulatory body has published its findings.  They have recognise the impact IoT will have an the UK’s industries and have identified the priority areas that will facilitate IoT implementation and growth.  These areas include data privacy, Network Address, spectrum availability, network security and resilience.

Inline with current trends to reduce C0₂ emissions and other harmful greenhouse gases the UK is pulling out all the stops to modernise its power grid infrastructure.  Up and down the country, there are smart grid projects and pilot schemes to change the way they use, manage, supply and create electricity with the intention to use less, reduce its effect on the environment and reduce its cost.  In partnership with the private sector and government UK universities are playing an important role to make these goals achievable.

NEC Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of NEC Corporation has completed the installation of 5.7MWh energy storage solution for the UK’s Northern Powergrid.  The installations were across six sites including urban and rural locations as part of the Customer-Led Network Revolution (CLNR), an initiative pilot, test and develop a smart grid infrastructure across the UK.

Of the over 30 energy suppliers in the UK, for some time, only British Gas was offering a smart energy management platform as part of their energy services. Customer needing an energy management solution would have to do it independently or use British Gas Hive. Through a joint partnership with Nest, the smart thermostat company, nPower is offering their own smart energy management service to compete with British Gas.

Last week EDF officially opened two of their new UK energy plants; West Burton Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Power Station and the Teesside Offshore Wind Farm. Both plants are part of a £3.5bn investment in the UK energy sector over the last three years. Part of this planned investment is to extend the lives of 15 nuclear reactors, build a new gas storage facility and a new nuclear power station.

Three UK Universities are to collaborate in the development of a digital home health assistant.  SPHERE project which stand for “Sensor Platform for Healthcare in a Residential Environment”, hopes to address some of the challenges the UK’s healthcare system faces.

Halifax Home Insurance has released a summary of its finding from its inaugural "Halifax Insurance Digital Home Index", a study of how UK households are using today’s technologies.  The study shows that on average each home owns on average of GBP 4,164 worth of technology devices.  It also revealed that we are so hocked on these devices that we even take them to bed and into the bathroom.

Like other countries around the world, the UK wants its cities to be smart, connected, energy efficient and maximise its resources. Recently 30 of the UK’s cities were nominated to be the test bed for the latest smart cities initiatives. Of the 30 possible UK cities, the department of innovation selected the city of Glasgow to be the recipient of a £24 million investment to demonstrate how Britain’s cities will use technology in the future.

Honeywell today announced a smart grid project that will help SSE plc connect up to 30 commercial and industrial buildings in the Thames Valley area west of London, and temporarily reduce electricity consumption when overall use spikes. This will help alleviate the potential for future transmission and distribution bottlenecks as the peak demand for energy grows. It will also enable building operators to decrease their energy use, utility bills and carbon dioxide emissions.