Fixing a Very Broken Energy System

Did you hear about the time when major oil companies were tasked with reducing fuel consumption across all sectors?

Or when the government asked McDonald's to take the lead on a healthy school meals programme?

What about the one where the Association of Livestock Farmers did that huge campaign for veganism?

No. You haven’t heard of any of these stories, because they would be ridiculous.

Why is it then, that the UK’s big energy supply companies have been tasked with helping people to become more energy efficient? Because that’s exactly the situation we’re in today.

In the UK, energy suppliers are trusted to roll out smart meters and teach people how to use them in order to be more sustainable.

But here’s a question: Energy inefficiency = ______ to energy companies?

The answer is profit.

It’s quite simple. The less efficiently you use energy, the more energy you use, and therefore the more profit your energy supplier makes. The very nature of their business means they aren’t on your side. Quite the opposite.

If you have an old, faulty appliance in your kitchen that’s using 30% more electricity than it should, there’s no incentive for your energy company to know that, and even if it did, there’s a big disincentive for your energy supplier to tell you about it. That faulty appliance means more money in their bank account at the end of the month.

But we need to talk about energy. Whilst everything else has changed until it’s unrecognisable… the way we consume and are charged for our energy has stayed almost exactly the same for decades. How can that be the case? Is there no data when it comes to energy consumption? Is there no way of doing energy consumption and supply differently?

“Ah, but I have an energy broker – they help me save money on my energy!”. This is kind of true, but what many people don’t know is that energy brokers tend to take a commission based on how much energy you consume. So, whilst they may help you save money on your energy contract, they also have a big disincentive to help you consume less energy.

Here’s that question again: Consuming more energy than you need = ______ to energy brokers?

Yep, you guessed it: profit.

Now ask yourself: Who should you NOT trust to help with your efficiency?

Answer: Anyone who wins when you over-consume energy.

Once you see this problem for what it is, it’s frustrating to say the least. But what can you actually do about it?

At OAK Network, we’re turning the energy industry on its head (actually, it’s already on its head – we’re flipping it all the way over so it finally makes sense). We are the live, automated, sustainability concierge for business. Our sole aim is to make you more energy efficient whilst saving you time and money.

We clip a small device onto your electricity supply which allows us to monitor your electricity consumption hundreds of times per minute. Using clever artificial intelligence, we’re able to harness the power of this data, and the data of the wider Network, to do quite incredible things.

Our secure AI can tell when your lights go on and when service starts, how much energy your broken boiler is using and how quickly you could recoup the cost of installing a new one.

It can tell when you open to the public, when you need drinks to be cold and when you need the ice machine full. It can tell when you could turn your fridges off temporarily to save thousands of pounds a year.

We can give you smart plugs so we can program your fridges to turn off overnight and you never have to think about them sitting there, quietly saving you money and reducing your carbon footprint.

We know so much more about our client’s energy consumption than any energy supplier or energy broker has ever known. And we use this information (in combination with the millions of other anonymous data points we collect), with one aim and one aim only – to help you effortlessly reduce your own energy consumption and costs.

In the process, we make you more sustainable, make your customers happier, and offer to swap you to green, cheaper energy tariffs without charging a commission.

As we said, we’re doing things a bit differently at OAK. Changing the world with sustainable energy management has never been so easy.