Cambridge Business Wins £40,000 Climate Change Innovation Prize

2009-02-25 12:31:25

A Cambridge based business with a big idea for tackling climate change has won a Shell Springboard award of £40,000, giving the business a valuable boost in a programme designed to promote the growth of the low carbon economy in the UK.

Alertme.com Ltd received the award for its energy management system, which allows home owners to monitor how much energy they are consuming and automatically turn off devices that are not in use through their mobile phones and the web.

Left to right Adrian Critchlow, Duncan MacLeod, Pilgrim Beart & Karen Lawrence

The AlertMe Energy system uses "smart plugs" that allow home owners to control and monitor how much power their home appliances are using. Working wirelessly with other smart devices that monitor energy use across the whole home, this information tells you how much you are spending on powering your house, and where. Using manual and automatic controls, AlertMe Energy could save the average home  £30 a month on heating and electricity bills, and cut domestic energy wastage and associated carbon emissions by a quarter.

Shell Springboard gives a financial boost to innovative, commercially viable business ideas that tackle climate change.  The programme encourages a positive business response to the challenge of climate change by providing a no-strings financial boost to small ideas with innovative products and services that could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and really make a difference.

Pilgrim Beart from Alertme.com.

Pilgrim Beart, co-founder of Alertme.com Ltd, said: “This award recognises the huge market potential for our product.  Now is the time for each and every one of us to play our part in combating climate change and I hope that innovations like the AlertMe Energy system will help consumers to do their bit.”

Duncan Macleod, VP Hydrogen & GTL, Shell International Ltd said: “Congratulations to Pilgrim Beart and Alertme.com Ltd. The Alert Me Energy system not only has genuine commercial potential but could also have a significant impact on the UK’s carbon emissions. It’s this kind of cutting-edge innovation that has made the UK a world leader in low carbon technology investment. In a difficult economic climate, it has become more important than ever that we continue to foster such independent entrepreneurialism which is so crucial to the UK economy in the long term.”

According to Shell Springboard’s Race Against the Carbon Pound report the UK’s ‘green’ companies attracted over £1billion of venture capital and private equity investment in 2007: 41% of the EU total.  This makes the UK the European leader when it comes to attracting venture capital and private equity investment in low carbon technologies, second only to the United States worldwide.

Alertme.com Ltd competed against eight businesses from across the region on 24th February 2009 in London and will now compete to be named as the overall UK winner in London on the 3rd of March.

Juice Technology Ltd, based in Hertfordshire, and Ma (Innovation) 2T4 Ltd in Essex also received awards of £40,000, and will go forward with Alertme.com Ltd to the UK final on the 3rd of March.