Delivering the collective power of home energy management
Created in 2008, IJENKO is a Home Energy Management Solution (HEMS) platform combining energy efficiency, demand management and home protection services.
It’s principal aim is to allow service providers and their residential customers to benefit from a participative energy management.
In the global Smart Grid architecture, IJENKO stands as the behavioural component of Home Energy Management, beyond the electric meter. Offered in a SaaS (Software as a Service) mode to utilities, energy providers, Internet service providers, specialised retailers and system integrators, the IJENKO solution helps them deploy and operate wide-scale cost-effective energy management services in the residential market.
The grid is being modernised to meet a number of challenges such as the continuous growth of demand, the increase of intermittent micro-generation in the energy mix, the arrival of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs), smart appliances and micro-storage capacities. Beyond the technological and industry organisation impacts, it is a true societal evolution that is under way. In this new sustainable energy model, utilities, local authorities, service providers and consumers will have to work together hand-in-hand to optimise the use, production and storage of greener resources and to participate in the overall supply and demand balance.
In this smarter grid IJENKO has a purpose; to deliver the collective power of energy management, and in particular, in the residential space. IJENKO sets itself within the scope of the evolving energy market, the changing political directions – notably the Grenelle de l’Environnement, which is the French equivalent of the British Green Deal – and the citizens’ will of change for a more responsible and sustainable behaviour.
Coping with new issues related to the evolving energy market like peak shedding, service providers must now interact with their customers to ensure their durability and reliability. Downstream, consumers are provided with simple, easy-to-use, smart devices to install within their household and monitor thanks to a personalised and ergonomic user interface. Therefore, those downstream are being moved closer towards services providers. Moving consumers to a ‘prosumer’ status is what IJENKO is yearning for.
The IJENKO Home Energy Management Solution enables the delivery of scalable, cost effective energy efficiency, demand management and home protection services in the residential market, with an open and secured, cloud-based service platform, consumer-engaging user interfaces and an open-standard Home Area Network (HAN).
On the one hand, with the help of smart devices set to be installed within their household, consumers are empowered and engaged in sustained, effortless energy management actions. Thanks to a residential gateway connected to the Internet and smart devices such as smart plugs, temperature/hygrometry sensors and power meter sensors, consumers are able to measure and control their energy costs and reduce their energy footprint. All these interconnected smart devices enable the long-distance monitoring of electric appliances via a personalised user interface that consumers can access through their television, computers, tablets and smart phones. Beyond Home Energy Management, IJENKO also provides protection applications through smoke detectors, motion detectors and open/close detectors.
On the other hand, service providers connect with their customers and gradually engage them in advanced energy management services. IJENKO enables them to create a valuable communication channel, improve their forecasting and profitability through advanced analytics and behavioural profiling, and eventually, they can translate their business objectives and regulatory mandates into collective demand management programmes.
As IJENKO aspires to a fully integrated system, it is committed to many projects. Amongst these, there is one supported by the Ademe (French environment agency) named Modelec, which has just been launched and includes different partners such as local energy providers and a sociology lab. This project aims to implement a platform in order to measure the households’ consumption, monitor peak shedding and understand the customers’ behaviours towards these new services.
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