Advizzo is delighted to have secured additional funding from Innovate UK. The grant will be used to advance our research and development into how our customer engagement software platform and combined data science/behavioral science approach can address a number of challenges related to customers in vulnerable circumstances and encouraging sustainable water consumption.
Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government.
Whether it’s the day-to-day use of water in the home, the use of water for increased hygiene measures in the fight against Covid-19, or for recreational activities, the pandemic has shown how central this valuable resource is to our everyday lives. However, with an increasing number of households facing water affordability challenges (compounded by the Covid pandemic) and continued pressures on supplies, water is a resource that can no longer be taken for granted.
Advizzo is combining emerging concepts in Big Data, behavioral science and machine learning to analyse and uniquely enrich actual water usage data with a range of external data sources to produce actionable insights in behavior, segmentation and forecasting. These insights are then translated into targeted behavioral intervention strategies specific to each individual household.
With the assistance of Innovate UK’s latest grant we will focus on:
- Better identifying and supporting vulnerable customers.
- Achieving an improved understanding of customer demand to help monitor and avert potential household water-efficiency problems e.g. leaks.
- Optimise the use of data around consumption patterns to truly understand and influence customer behavior.
- Helping households to reduce water consumption and practice more sustainable behaviors with guidance to achieve this, specific to that household.
Whilst other attempts have been made to analyse actual consumption data to identify generic disaggregation patterns for the purpose of improved modelling of water consumption in households, these have been largely academic in focus with limited accuracy. Our unique behavioral/data science based approach has been specifically designed with input from the UK’s Water utility companies and is driven by objectives from Regulatory bodies including Ofwat and Ofgem.
With its potential to address recognized sustainability and social challenges that could positively impact every UK household, our project will deliver significant benefit for utilities, regulators and customers. We hope that the solution could also be exploited across wider utility markets including energy, where similar challenges exist, as well as within wider geographical territories.