Altuity Solutions, a Bristol-based developer of facilities and asset management software, has won a £15,000 grant to help the company expand into the growing retrofit sector.
The grant, provided by Innovate UK EDGE in partnership with the Catapult Network, will fund access to retrofit experts at Connected Places Catapult.
They will work with Altuity – which recently featured on our PropTech 50 ranking – to analyse retrofit build processes and identify where Altuity’s technology can be deployed to benefit organisations involved in retrofitting.
A recent report by the Centre for Low Carbon Futures and the Energy Savings Trust found that UK builders need to improve the energy efficiency of 1.8 homes every minute until 2050 if the government is to meet its climate change commitments.
That equates to 29m homes by 2050 at a total cost of between £400 bn and £1,000bn but the current rate of retrofitting is half of that.
“The requirement for large-scale retrofitting is a huge opportunity,” explained Steve Voller, Altuity’s founder. “It will create a new, booming industry, with demand for new technology companies, manufacturing, installers and consultants. The retrofit industry needs to scale by a factor of 10 to meet the UK’s net zero targets.”
Just this month the Government announced its Net Zero Strategy, including £3.9 billion of new funding for decarbonising heat and buildings and an extra £500 million towards innovation projects to develop the green technologies of the future.
Voller continued: “Having access to CPC experts through the grant will help us identify where our technology can help improve efficiency in retrofit processes. This will speed up workflows, reduce costs and ultimately play a part in reducing CO2 emissions.
“The grant will also help us identify where new specialist functionality should be developed which will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of electronic data collection, and ultimately give us the ability to share information across the industry as a whole.”
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Retrofit processes cover initial surveys through making recommendations to improve buildings, undertaking work and auditing and monitoring the improvements made to ensure they’re delivering the energy efficiency improvements needed.
Altuity was already working with IUK EDGE innovation and growth specialists and together they identified the opportunity to apply for a grant to help Altuity expand into the retrofit sector.
“We’re delighted to see Steve and the team at Altuity progress their project with this grant,” said Adele Reynolds from Innovate UK Edge South West.
“We are working in conjunction with a host of companies from a variety of sectors who are benefitting from this funding and it’s exciting to see businesses reaching new levels of innovation and success with Innovate EDGE support.”
There are nine catapults across the UK and Altuity identified CPC as being the ideal partner for this project given their expertise in retrofit activities.
Metodi Naydenov, SME development manager at Connected Places Catapult, said: “One of our Catapult’s missions is accelerating the transition to Net Zero through innovation. The built environment and especially the retrofit sector play a vital role in achieving this.
“Therefore we are excited to work with high-growth potential innovators like Altuity Solutions, to facilitate the entry of valuable new products to this market.
“We are delighted that IUK EDGE and Altuity approached us for this project and we hope that the EDGE grant scheme will stimulate more companies to work with the Catapults to advance their innovation.”