Navigating the Winds of Change: Challenges of Marketing in the Renewables Sector

Written by Curtis Cregan

As the world embraces the urgent need for sustainable energy solutions, the renewables sector has witnessed remarkable growth in recent years. However, alongside this growth comes a unique set of challenges for marketing professionals. In this blog post, I will explore some of the key obstacles faced by marketers like myself in the renewables sector and shed on my experiences in the last 2 years at The Electric Storage Company. Join me as I attempt to navigate the winds of change, and help lead the charge on the path to a cheaper, smarter, and greener future. (It’s all pun and games here!)

Educating the masses:

One of the fundamental challenges in marketing renewables is educating consumers about the benefits and significance of clean energy sources. Many people still lack a clear understanding of renewable technologies and their positive impact on the environment. One of the main challenges for me was getting my head around such a complex product like PARIS (and the thousands of acronyms that come along with it). For those who don’t know me, I haven’t come from a technical background so I won’t pretend to be an expert, I will leave that to our ridiculously talented engineers and developers. After all, it is my job to translate the complexities of their work into everyday speak.

Effective communication strategies, such as engaging content, visual storytelling, and simplified explanations, can help dispel misconceptions and inspire individuals to embrace renewable energy solutions. Here at The Electric Storage Company, we believe in the change that our product can bring to people’s lives in their homes and in their businesses. We only have to look at Project Girona to see the positive impacts that renewables and data science can bring.

If you’re not familiar with Project Girona, The Electric Storage Company worked with a range of stakeholders to install batteries, solar PV, and PARIS software into 60 properties in Coleraine. In total the project saved £26,995, that’s an average of £450 per household. Through the use of renewables and generating their own clean and green energy an estimated 40.02 tonnes CO2 less was produced (that’s 19 cars off the road) and 31,340 kWh of exported energy, that’s enough to power 10 homes for a year! Those numbers don’t tell the full story either, this project took place before the astronomical price rises over the last year and a bit.

Check out this article for some more information: https://theelectricstoragecompany.com/projects/project-girona/

Overcoming Perceptions and Misconceptions:

The renewables sector often faces skepticism and resistance from consumers who may perceive renewable technologies as unreliable or expensive. Addressing these misconceptions is crucial. Marketers need to showcase the advancements in renewable energy, highlighting improved efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and long-term savings. Leveraging real-world success stories, testimonials, and case studies can help build trust and confidence in renewables, countering any negative perceptions that exist.

Navigating Policy and Regulatory Landscape:

Government policies and regulations significantly impact the renewables sector. Marketing professionals must stay up-to-date with the ever-evolving landscape to ensure compliance and capitalize on available incentives. Keeping track of relevant legislation, tax credits, and subsidies allows marketers to position their renewable energy solutions effectively. Collaborating with policymakers, industry associations, and advocacy groups can help shape favourable policies and create a supportive marketing environment. Admittingly, my workload on this front has been vastly reduced with the government in Northern Ireland being ground to a standstill. Seems like a century ago

Greenwashing and staying true to your moral compass:

In the renewables sector, there is an increased risk of greenwashing, where companies falsely promote their products or services as environmentally friendly. Trying to remain vigilant and ensure our messaging aligns with the company’s core values and genuine commitment to sustainability. At The Electric Storage Company transparency and authenticity are paramount to building trust and credibility with consumers.

When The Electric Storage Company was with 4 pillars the foundations of what the business wanted to achieve that was:

1. Decarbonise – TESC wanted to produce a solution that enables the reduction of CO2 for both commercial and residential customers.

2. Decentralise – We want to increase energy self-sufficiency and control of their energy.

3. Digitalise – At TESC we were born in the cloud and we believe that a digital-first approach can empower our customers.

4. Democratise – We aim to provide access and choice, we enable our customers to choose and effectively integrate renewable energy within their homes and premises.

Having these core principles in place has often provided a gentle reminder of what we are trying to achieve. Temptation can be there to stray from these values in the search for success but we are a business that was built with the customer at the centre and often acts as the lighthouse in foggy waters.

Niche Targeting and Segmentation:


The renewables sector encompasses a diverse range of technologies and solutions, each catering to specific markets and audiences. Effective marketing requires targeted messaging and precise segmentation. “Everybody is different” is the message we often get from the data team. Each business or home is different to the next and this creates its own challenges in terms of consumption profiles. However, by studying the behaviour of these use cases we are able to draw similarities that may help or hinder your thinking. However, as frustrating as it may be sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get to the right place.

We are in a relatively new space and understanding the unique needs, preferences, and motivations of different customer segments allows marketers to tailor their campaigns accordingly. Personalization, digital marketing tools, and data analytics can play a pivotal role in identifying and reaching niche markets within the renewables sector. However, in a world where AI seems to be taking over it is easy to take the lazy route and let chat GPT do the heavy lifting. I have found that the most successful way of understanding our customers is to listen to them. (Big shock there, I know) We have a great relationship with many of our customers and they provide us with constant feedback and insights that can help us place ourselves to help others.

As the world transitions towards a sustainable future, marketing professionals in the renewables sector face distinctive challenges. By focusing on education, dispelling misconceptions, navigating a greenwashing tightrope, highlighting the advantages of renewables, addressing infrastructure limitations, and embracing targeted marketing strategies, these challenges can be overcome. As marketing professionals, it is our responsibility to drive awareness, change perceptions, and promote the adoption of renewable energy solutions. Together, we can usher in a greener tomorrow and create a brighter, cleaner future for generations to come.

Thank you for making it to the end of my piece and I hope that you enjoyed it or were at least mildly amused.

NI’s first smart grid delivers 55% energy cost savings

The Electric Storage Company announces results of £4.5m pilot renewables project in Coleraine

A £4.5M RENEWABLES project, part-funded by UKRI (£2.2M grant) with £2.3M match-funded, has saved a combined £27,000 in energy costs for 60 properties concentrated around the Ballysally area of Coleraine in just one year.  This represents an average saving of 55% per property across the Project.

Northern Ireland’s first smart electricity grid, ‘Project Girona’, was designed by The Electric Storage Company to demonstrate the potential benefits of a SLES (Smart Local Energy System). 

Bringing cheaper, smarter, greener electricity to homes and communities in Coleraine, The Electric Storage Company is yesterday, 28th September 2022, announcing the findings of the 12-month study.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQaUHNYD1Fg&t=19s&ab_channel=TheElectricStorageCompany
Summary Video of Project Girona, delivered by The Electric Storage Company

Combining solar panels and battery storage technology, Project Girona has successfully saved businesses, homeowners, tenants, and local community groups an average of 55% in electricity costs.  Further to the significant cost savings – which will become even greater as energy prices continue to soar – Project Girona saved 40 tonnes of CO2 – which equates to the same amount of C02 used by 19 family cars in a year. 

Equalling £450.00 average saving per household
Equalling 19 cars off the road
Enough to power 10 homes for one year

The project generated 171MWh of renewable electricity and exported 30MWh of green energy to the grid.  The exported electricity generated further income for the properties and enabled other properties to benefit from clean energy.

sonnen batterie installed as part of Project Girona 2020.

Commenting on the results of Project Girona and the technology behind its success, Eddie McGoldrick, Co-Founder of The Electric Storage Company said: “We’re living through a cost-of-living crisis with energy costs spiraling, and this makes the results of Project Girona even more relevant in today’s environment.

“We have been working on bringing this technology to market for seven years, and it’s now available to customers across Northern Ireland, who can benefit from reduced electricity costs, whilst reducing their carbon footprint. Combining battery storage with renewable technology is the way forward in future-proofing homes from the escalating energy costs that we’re seeing today.”

Following the initial pilot project, the homeowners and tenants participating in the project have been gifted the pilot technology, worth £840,000, and will continue to benefit from the savings that it generates for years to come. 

Co-Founder and Operations Director of The Electric Storage Company, Anne Marie McGoldrick, continues: “Project Girona successfully demonstrated average savings of 55% on electricity bills using this solution.  With the addition of our smart management platform, PARIS – which extracts the full economic value of every unit of energy – we are predicting further savings of up to 20% for customers.

“PARIS uses smart technology and data to make the complex simple so that the customer  doesn’t have to do a thing.”

Project Girona involved just 60 properties, which in turn saved almost £27,000 in energy costs. As a pilot project, this indicates that if the same solar panel and battery storage smart solution provided by The Electric Storage Company was applied to 1000 new homes that it would generate 2.8GWh of green energy, worth £625,000 and importantly reduce carbon emissions by 667 tonnes in one year. 

Solar Panel Installation Project Girona, Coleraine.

Minister for the Economy, Gordon Lyons, visited Focus on Family, a charitable Nurturing & Development Centre based in the Ballysally Estate, to learn more about the benefits of the technology and how it has saved businesses, homeowners, tenants and charities like Focus on Family thousands of pounds in electricity costs. A representative from Focus on Family met with the minister and told how the organization has made savings of a staggering 69% (£855*) on its electricity bills since adopting the solar panel and battery storage solution.

Commenting on his visit, Minister Lyons added; “I am acutely aware that the unprecedented rise in energy prices is having a significant impact on homes, business, and the community sector. While we, unfortunately, do not have control of the global markets dictating many of these costs, green energy projects help to protect consumers by providing alternative sources of energy. Project Girona is an excellent example of an innovative local pilot project making energy more affordable.

“My Department’s energy strategy ‘The Path to Net Zero’ is a longer-term strategy for the whole of Northern Ireland to become less vulnerable to volatile global energy markets. Affordability is front and centre of this strategy which takes an ‘energy efficiency first’ approach aiming to help consumers to reduce the energy they use and therefore their energy bills.”

sonnen batterie 10 installation, 2020.

Find out more about this smart energy solution and the work of The Electric Storage Company at www.theelectricstoragecompany.com

For further information:

Curtis Cregan *The Electric Storage Company* [email protected]

Riki Neill / Jolene Kelly * RNN Communications * [email protected]

NOTES

  1. The GIRONA project started in Mar 20 with field installations starting in Feb 21.  The Project concluded on 28 May 2022 with the final report submitted in Jun 22 to UK Research and innovation (UKRI). 
  2. The project started as the first COVID-19 lockdown was initiated.  The Project was successfully delivered during the pandemic.
  3. A total of 172 MWh of electricity was generated by solar PV (12 months).  This is 49.6% of total electricity consumption by the Girona cluster (129 MWh).  There are 2 locations in the cluster that are large consumers which are skewing the figures somewhat.  If these are removed the total generation increases to 55% instead of 49.6%.
  4. 2.    Total/cluster savings (12 months) is approximately £26,995 (based on a 18p/unit price)
  5. 3.    Total/cluster CO2 savings (12 months) equates to 40.2 tonnes of CO2 not produced by the power stations.  This is the equivalent of taking 19 family cars off the road in terms of CO2 production.
  6. 4.    The GIRONA cluster exported a total of 31 MWh of electricity back to the network (this is included 172k generation figure) (12 months).  This means that other consumers were availing of renewable/green electricity generated by the GIRONA cluster (c.3tonnes of CO2 that power stations have not had to produce). * This CO2 data was generated using the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Footprint Calculator.
  7. GIRONA has 60 properties with PV and battery.  These properties came on-line incrementally and not altogether. 
  8. TESC has already created 15 new green jobs with a plan to raise a further 10 jobs in the near future. 
  9. Focus on Family, made cost savings of 69% (equating to £855*) on its electricity bill following installation of the solar panel and smart battery solution for Project Girona.

*this figure is an estimate based on a flat rate cost of 24p and no feed in rate

THE ELECTRIC STORAGE COMPANY DELIVERS CHEAPER, SMARTER, AND GREENER ELECTRICITY TO CUSTOMERS USING KX REAL-TIME ANALYTICS

Belfast, July 26th: The Electric Storage Company (TESC) has increased its investment in KX’s real-time analytics platform to continue to deliver cheaper, smarter, and greener electricity to customers.

KX provides the data management and analytics technology underpinning TESC’s Predictive Analytical Renewables Integration System (PARIS) platform. PARIS analyses data to accurately predict future energy usage within homes and businesses, specifically when energy is needed and if it can be generated by TESC customers. Together TESC and KX can help aging electricity grids, by avoiding peak times without denying customers the service they need, while maximizing commercial opportunities for renewable energy.

Eddie McGoldrick, Managing Director, TESC: “We’re seeing substantially greater demand from customers and businesses who are both concerned with rising energy prices but also keen to adopt greener practices, whether through personal choice or forced to do so by regulation and client procurement pre-requisites. By taking additional licenses and support from KX, we’ll not only be able to meet current demand but also bring additional innovative solutions to market.”

KX enables The Electric Storage Company (TESC) to capture, store and analyze all customer data anytime, anywhere – delivering the insight and context needed to make faster, better-informed decisions to enable customers to maximize the value of their energy on its PARIS platform.

PARIS then automatically makes an informed decision on whether to use renewable energy as it is generated, store it to use later, or help maintain network services to help maintain the grid thus generating new income streams from the customers’ own renewable energy.

PARIS also enables customers, to gain insight into their energy usage including real-time consumption and production data as well as their savings. All of which is delivered via the KX platform.

And the savings can be significant. Typically TESC customers can reduce energy costs by up to 70%, as well as CO2 emissions. This all ladders up helping businesses remain compliant with an ever-growing burden of ESG reporting and regulation while also being able to better navigate the growing public and investor demand for businesses to comply with greener practices.

James Corcoran, SVP Customer Value at KX: “We are delighted that TESC has increased its investment in KX as it continues to deliver market-leading green energy solutions. The rapid analysis of data to automatically predict future energy consumption, and make commercial and operational decisions based on those insights, is an ideal use case for the real-time power and performance of KX. We look forward to working with TESC as it grows its business.”

KX is able to solve complex problems faster – and on a smaller infrastructure footprint – than any of its competitors — whether on-premise, in the cloud, or at the edge. Its advanced analytics and visualization tools, used widely across finance and industry, enable customers to define and perform queries, calculations, aggregations, machine learning, and AI on any streaming and historical data. Built-in machine learning and complex event processing allow for quick decision-making and proactive automated actions to be executed in fractions of a second.

TESC’s NET HERO app that is powered by PARIS (Predictive Analytical Renewables Integration System)

Heron Bros Deliver Power Boost for The Electric Storage Company with Significant Investment and Strategic Partnership

The Electric Storage Company (TESC) has announced a significant seven figure investment and strategic partnership with the Heron Brothers.

This investment from Heron Bros will now fast track TESC’s growth plans significantly and they plan to more than double their team of power and software engineers, and data scientists to 35 in the next 2-3 years.

Heron Bros, an award-winning construction and property development company which operates throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe is already experienced in the renewable space as lead partner in the renewable energy company, Simple Power which was at the forefront of wind energy production in Northern Ireland.

The partnership will enable the further roll out of the PARIS platform (Predictive Analytical Renewables Integration System). PARIS brings Fintech and GreenTech together using leading edge data analytics software to gather data from smart batteries in people’s homes and commercial buildings and then ensures they get the cheapest, greenest energy.

Speaking about the investment Damien O’Callaghan, Group MD, Heron Bros said; “The combined strengths of Heron Bros and The Electric Storage Company will now offer an exciting and innovative proposition to help our customers on the path to net zero. According to recent research from leading management consultancy McKinsey’s, real estate across homes and businesses accounts for about 40% of all Greenhouse gas emissions. It is our belief that by improving the efficiencies in real estate (both new construction and existing buildings) that most companies can realistically reduce more than half of their emissions between now and 2030. This significant investment and partnership are designed to help companies and individuals do just that.”

Eddie McGoldrick, Director TESC added; “The Electric Storage Company combines Northern Ireland’s expertise in power engineering, fintech and big data and we are now aiming to ‘scale up’ significantly to repeat our already successful smart approach to electricity usage across Ireland and GB. Our team are delighted to now partner with one of Northern Ireland’s leading construction and renewables development companies to fast track that growth. Our shared expertise in renewables and delivering innovative customer solutions for customers across the British Isles will bring lower costs to greener homes and businesses and help people to meet their net zero targets sooner.”

Pictured at TESC’s offices in the Innovation Factory in west Belfast are (l-r) Damien O’Callaghan, Heron Bros; Eddie McGoldrick and Anne Marie McGoldrick from TESC and Emmet Heron, Heron Bros.

Big ‘FLEX’ for The Electric Storage Company as they support new project

System and network operators across the globe are demonstrating smarter, more flexible network solutions that offer greater control over power flows, helping to reduce the need for network reinforcement to manage periods of peak demand. The Electric Storage Company is the first provider of Flexibility services in Northern Ireland to use battery technology, coupled with renewable generation as part of NIE Networks’ FLEX project.

The Electric Storage Company uses a combination of battery storage and its PARIS software platform to provide network stabilisation at times of peak demand, particularly after 5:00 pm when energy consumption increases post-work and school, as households return for the evening.

With the predicted increase in the use of electric vehicles and electrified heating, comes an increased demand on the network. Providing flexible network support enables distribution network operators like NIE Networks, to meet this demand while minimising the investment that would be required to upgrade the electricity infrastructure in order to cater for this rise in demand. Battery technology managed by sophisticated energy management platforms like The Electric Storage Company’s PARIS platform is ideally placed to provide these services, and in return can provide additional income for households using battery technology.

This solution from The Electric Storage Company uses the company’s signature PARIS energy management platform and batteries from the company’s ‘Project Girona’ (gironaenergy.com) allocation to provide energy for flexibility services. The PARIS software virtually aggregates the allocated batteries into a cluster before the system discharges the energy stored at a specific peak time.


PARIS, which stands for Predictive Analytical Renewables Integration System, is the brainchild of co-founder and Director of The Electric Storage Company Eddie McGoldrick and is designed to maximise the value of every unit of the energy, to the benefit of the customer. The system has been developed using state of the art data analytics software, which specialises in forecasting the usage and generation of energy to determine the value it can bring to customers using real-time data. Using the same technology that underpins financial trading software, the PARIS system has the capability to make smart decisions on when to store, use and release energy, benefitting the battery and the consumer in terms of both energy and cost efficiency. The Electric Storage Company believe that the PARIS system and its capabilities in smart energy management represent the beginning of a new era in the electricity and ENTEC sectors that will play a key role in the achievement of the UK’s Net Carbon Zero targets.

SMARTER. CHEAPER. CLEANER.

Invest NI has offered The Electric Storage Company £206,000 of support towards new jobs, support to participate on its collaborative growth programme, technical development assistance and R&D. Two of the new jobs are now in place!

Eddie McGoldrick, Director and Co-Founder of The Electric Storage Company, said: “Our business is based on moving customers towards cheaper, smarter, greener energy. By combining knowledge of the market, issues with the rural aspects of electricity supply, factors that create fuel poverty and the recent improvements in relevant technologies, we have created a new business model which we are confident will appeal to domestic consumers in Northern Ireland and beyond.”

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