In early January we reconvened for the first Open Energy Pilot Advisory Group meetings of 2022. The Advisory Groups are running from October 2021 until the end of February 2022 with two tracks: 1) Membership & Delivery, and 2) User Needs. Additionally, the Steering Group has met to support the overarching strategy. 

The two groups are composed of a wide range of industry leaders and subject matter experts, representing a cross section of private and public players with a unique contribution. The Advisory Groups play a critical role in Open Energy’s development, providing us with a 360 perspective that ensures that Open Energy is designed for and with the energy sector. 

Here’s a summary of everything achieved and discussed in the January meetings.

Membership & Delivery

The group discussed:

  • Potential barriers stakeholder face when deciding to sign up to become a member of Open Energy
  • An update on how Open Energy is progressing
  • The communications effort focussed around winning support for Open Energy with key stakeholders including DNOs, government, SMEs and innovators and how these messages can be improved to be more persuasive
  • Progress on the use case prioritisation process occurring in the User Needs Advisory Group
  • An update on the membership contracting and website terms and conditions
  • A review of Open Energy’s DPIA, record of processing, and privacy notice
  • What the Open Energy tech team has been doing, including: operational monitoring, data set entry, adding OE Search and discovery to analyst’s tools, and analyst user journeys being prototyped in Jupyter Notebook

Still under discussion: 

  • What other tools should we be looking at for Open Energy integration?
  • We are looking for Open Energy customers to help us shape the product proposition and user experience ideally with people in these roles) CTO, DNO Developer, Startup Developer, and Consultant. If you are interested, please email us at openenergy@icebreakerone.org.

User Needs

The group discussed:

  • How to make the user needs and use case prioritisation process repeatable with further use cases and maintain stakeholder engagement
  • An update on how Open Energy is progressing
  • Prioritising the two potential use cases to explore next, including:
    • a flexibility asset builder would like to know where to build assets and of what type to ensure a return on investment and 
    • a mechanical and electrical contractor wants to know how to reduce grid reliance and grid connection requirements for new housing developments. 
  • An update on the progressing electric vehicle (EV) use case 
  • The communications effort focussed around winning support for Open Energy with key stakeholders including DNOs, government, SMEs and innovators and how these messages can be improved to be more persuasive

Still under discussion: 

  • Feedback on the two presented use cases to take forward 
  • Any final feedback on the EV use case ahead of official documentation 

Steering Group

In this session, the Steering Group discussed

  • Reflections from 2021 on what we have learned throughout the last year of Open Energy
  • Challenges we are facing on aspects which are lacking, barriers to success, and how to overcome them
  • The road forward for market engagement
  • Refining messaging for with our communications team
  • The achievements and progress for the Membership & Delivery Advisory Group
  • The achievements and progress for the User Needs Advisory Group
Advisory and Steering Group membership applications have closed, if you’d like to sign up to be a part of the community review track, click here or email openenergy@icebreakerone.org