Nottingham City Council’s domestic solar panel programme has teamed up with local companies Robin Hood Energy and EkkoSense to further develop the energy sector in Nottingham.
The Council has an extensive solar panel programme across its council houses which are manged by Nottingham City Homes and the city has one the highest take ups of this green energy source in the UK which means there are major opportunities for local energy businesses.
Nottingham software developer EkkoSense have recently won a council tender to supply a monitoring system for over 3,000 of its solar installations. EkkoSense’s web based monitoring system checks every installation daily, providing all of the information needed to claim income generated by the solar panels along with detailed performance data analytics.
The system also ensures that the households are able to get the maximum amount of free electricity from the system, thus reducing their energy bills. Monitoring solar PV installations in this way identifies any repair or maintenance requirements almost immediately. This allows Nottingham City Homes and EkkoSense to work in partnership and respond very quickly to any problems, often before the resident knows anything is wrong!
Dean Boyle, EkkoSense CEO, said “It is fantastic to win the council tender to supply our innovative cloud based M2M/IOT based software dashboard to monitor their stock of solar PV installations. The support from Nottingham City Council and Nottingham City Homes has been crucial throughout the deployment and we look forward to a long term relationship.”
EkkoSense were awarded a Nottingham Technology Grant Fund (N’Tech) grant to support their early software development work in 2014.
Councillor Alan Clark, Portfolio Holder for Energy and Sustainability said: “Nottingham is a leading city in the UK in terms of energy and low carbon businesses. With over 400 business involved in the low carbon sector, its own energy supply company and the largest district heating scheme in the country it’s an ideal start up location for energy related companies to develop and grow.”
Local energy company Robin Hood Energy is supporting the solar panel rollout by acting as Feed in Tariff (FiT) Licensee for scheme. All FiTs payments have to be handled by a registered energy supplier who submits claims to OFGFEM on behalf of the energy generators. Robin Hood Energy ensure that the council get the correct payments for the energy generated across their estate of solar panels on over 4000 domestic roofs and 20 public buildings.
Energy Services Director, Gail Scholes said. “As the UK’s first council owned, not for profit energy company Robin Hood Energy is excited to be involved in another market leading council energy initiative. Robin Hood Energy is the fastest growing FITs supplier in the UK and we are extremely proud to be supporting the council’s solar panel programme. We hope that our participation in this programme will support the council’s position as a leading renewable energy city.”