
Hybrid-Heat Pump Controller Concept
To get the best out of a heat pump, you need to drive a little different. We built a concept UI that gives real users the kindest heat pump experience.
Discover what people really value with bespoke research
Build appealing propositions with our experienced players
Discover how consumers use your product or service
Harness innovation to reduce vulnerability to fuel poverty and design smarter consumer protection
UX/UI excellence from a team of proven heavyweights
See beyond what people say to understand what they do in smart homes around the UK

To get the best out of a heat pump, you need to drive a little different. We built a concept UI that gives real users the kindest heat pump experience.

Want to understand how different EV users charge their vehicles?
We have created five personas based on want consumers want from electric vehicle charging and demand-side response.

We collaborated with Bristol Energy to launch the UK’s first ever Heat Plan. Heat Plans allow people to pay for heating in ‘Warm Hours’ instead of traditional kilowatt hours.

There’s growing interest in the idea that businesses could sell energy as a service. Confident we could sell Heat as a Service, we wanted to explore how to add Hot Water. We used a Design Sprint to see how far we could get in three days.

Make sure people can easily use your product or service before you launch it. Give designers the information they need to create delightful experiences.

People often find their heating controls confusing and hard to use. Most put up with problems like drafts or damp. We knew people liked better control. BEIS wanted to find out how they actually used it, so we used our Living Lab of 100 homes to find out.

We gathered the best in the industry to run a 1-day bootcamp-style hackathon where this super-team developed a free open-source tool to score and publicly test solutions to UK fuel poverty.

Get rapid, cost-effective consumer feedback on your product, service or policy idea. Home Truths® is the Catapult’s online panel of 000’s of UK households.

Government is investing £100m in smart local energy system innovation projects from 2019-22. The aim is to create high value jobs providing cleaner, cheaper renewable energy.

We use 80% of our energy at home for heating and hot water. This produces 20% of our carbon emissions. We need to give people the heat they want without the carbon. So, back in 2013, we built a team of leading academics and consultants to understand how people use heat at home.

In May 2018 we fielded a team of UX and Service Designers to attend Octopus Energy’s ‘OctoHack’ event where the focus was novel applications of the Agile tariff API.

Find out how people use your product or service so you can improve it. Use simple things, like diaries, to record their everyday experiences using your product.

How to articulate what the key value of your product and services? We ran a 1 day workshop to refine language around a groundbreaking new proposition

Imagine people bought energy services, like a warm home, instead of units of fuel. Our consumer segmentation report is essential reading to developers of energy services.

When it comes to heating, people care more about their experience than how it’s delivered. They want to control how much they spend on their comfort, but don’t know how. If they could buy their Heating as a Service, then they choose how much to spend on their plan.
We succeed when you succeed: leverage our unique position
We are helping shape the policy landscape for the next 25 years
Matchmakers for government and entrepreneurs
Use Catapult modelling tools to validate propositions across the wider energy system
We collaborate with innovators to deliver projects that move towards decarbonisation goals
The Energy Systems Catapult is a not-for-profit set up by government to help the energy sector innovate. PeopleLab is home to our Consumer Insight team.
Find out more about the rest of the Catapult here then get us involved.
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Cannon House, 18 The Priory Queensway
Birmingham B4 6BS8
We love small print. Said nobody, ever.