EU funding under Horizon Europe will help us develop and validate SENSE, a what-if service that helps households understand their energy use and costs
TheFutureCats has been selected as one of the 20 winners of the ODEON Open Call, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. With this support we will develop and validate SENSE (Scenario-based Energy Sense-making for Prosumers). SENSE contributes to the resilient transformation of Europe’s energy system, supporting a greater integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES).
About ODEON
ODEON is a Horizon Europe project that aims to create an inclusive ecosystem based on a federated Cloud-Edge Data and Intelligence Service Platform for the energy sector. Through its Open Call, ODEON supports innovators who build new energy services on top of this platform. SENSE responds to Challenge 10, “Improving Prosumer Understanding Through What-If Scenario Analysis”. Joining the ODEON ecosystem also creates great opportunities for us to establish new international collaborations and partnerships.
The challenge: more energy data, less understanding
Households face energy questions every day. What would solar panels change? What if we switched tariff, or used more power at midday? Yet many cannot tell what these choices actually mean for their bill. Smart meters, solar panels and dynamic tariffs have given them more data than ever, but bills and apps show numbers without explaining them. Non-expert and energy-poor households are hit hardest, as they are the most exposed to energy costs and the least able to read the data. It is vital to give them tools that explain these choices transparently, in language they can understand and trust.
Our solution: SENSE
With SENSE, households try what-if scenarios. They adjust a few simple parameters, such as consumption, production or tariff. They then see how three indicators change: their energy cost, their use of their own production and their reliance on the grid. Every result is explained in plain language and traced back to its source by Cogniveil, our own governed AI platform. Households can check why a number moved, not just see that it did.
SENSE does not tell households what to do. Its purpose is understanding: helping people see the effect of each choice clearly, so they can draw their own conclusions. Built natively on the ODEON platform, SENSE uses its federated, privacy-preserving data and intelligence services. Households’ raw data stays protected within the platform.
What comes next
Over the 10-month programme, our team will build SENSE for non-expert and energy-poor households, with mentoring from the ODEON consortium. We will then test it with real users and real household data at one of the ODEON pilot sites. We will measure how much better they understand their energy use and costs.
We look forward to sharing our progress as SENSE moves from development to real-world testing. Follow us on LinkedIn to stay updated. Get in touch if you would like to learn more about SENSE.
