Digital Innovation in Energy Transition

AI is increasingly being developed and deployed as an accelerator of the domestic energy transition towards greener, healthier, and more affordable homes.

Deep tech including AI and digital twins holds promise for communities to better manage energy use, supporting more sustainable and collaborative ways of living. It can improve understanding of how homes perform in practice, where energy use can be optimised, which forms of retrofit are most appropriate, and how local energy systems can become more flexible and equitable. Across the built-environment sector, businesses are also developing new ways to harness insights generated by data-driven energy solutions. This creates opportunities for innovation and growth while addressing energy security, affordability, equity and net-zero goals.

Significant risks and uncertainties remain. This workshop brings together participants from industry, policy, and academia to explore the conditions under which digital innovation can succeed. Building on recent empirical research with communities in and around London, we will share insight into how digital systems can make the greatest practical contribution to decarbonisation, how emerging solutions can be tested and de-risked, and how policy, governance, and cross-sector collaboration can accelerate their responsible adoption.

We’ll explore

• What is needed to move early stage AI and energy solutions into responsible real-world deployment
• How regulatory models can better recognise emerging digital innovation and what innovators might do when they do not
• What happens when communities interact with AI, to behaviour, to trust, and to communities themselves
• Whether AI systems can support more inclusive, sustainable and collaborative energy solutions for homes and communities
• How innovators can use participatory approaches to anticipate stakeholder concerns, build trust and reduce the risk of societal pushback
• How public concerns around fairness, privacy, affordability, inclusion and sustainability can shape innovation
• What the ongoing transition from the UK’s Standard Assessment Procedure to the Home Energy Model means for testing and scaling new technologies

This event is aimed at startups and scaleups developing digital solutions for energy, housing and the built environment, and will also be of interest to established technology businesses, energy and housing organisations, policymakers and local authorities, community energy groups, and researchers interested in accelerating the responsible application of deep tech for domestic decarbonisation.

Participants will have the opportunity to:

• Hear expert perspectives, exchange practical challenges and solutions, exercise their imaginations in future-facing thinking, and identify opportunities for collaboration
• Those interested will also be invited to contribute to the development of a policy white paper and practical toolkit following the workshop
• The workshop will combine an expert panel with interactive activities based around future scenarios
• Join Sustainable AI Futures and Digital Catapult for a deep-tech deep dive into the future of AI in home and community energy

11:00 – Registration, tea and coffee

11:30 – Welcome and introductions 

An introduction to Digital Catapult and the Sustainable AI Futures programme, followed by an overview of Kyrill Potapov’s research into human-centred AI for community energy. 

Speakers:

• Chanell Daniels, Senior Responsible Technology Manager, Digital Catapult — welcome and introduction
• Jo Lindsay Walton, Principal Research Fellow in Arts, Climate and Technology, University of Sussex — Sustainable AI Futures
• Dr Kyrill Potapov, University College London — AI-supported community energy pilot

12:00 – Panel: AI and innovation in home energy 

Mapping the current policy and innovation landscape around AI, data, energy, and domestic decarbonisation — followed by audience questions and discussion. We will hear from industry, policy, and academia, with speaker names to be confirmed soon.

Chair:

• Rachel Rayns

12:45 – Networking lunch 

14:00 – Activity 1: AI-mediated community energy 

14:30 – Break

14:45 – Activity 2: Who models the models? AI in future policy contexts 

13:30 – Activity 3: trying out the AI and Energy toolkit 

15:15 – Final discussion and next steps 

15:45 – Finish 

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