Lightsource bp is committed to developing and deploying solutions that are changing power, to make our mark on the energy transition. This commitment isn’t just delivered by our responsible solar projects, but also by Lightsource Labs (now Powerverse), our in-house technology incubator.
Over the past five years, Lightsource Labs has been under intense R&D to create market-leading technology. The result is Powerverse — an artificial intelligence (AI) led energy management platform, providing best-in-class technology that powers a smarter, more affordable and connected electric world.
Owned by Lightsource bp, Powerverse’s technology is grounded by an industry-leading AI platform — called Powerverse Vesta. Vesta enables cheaper and cleaner energy consumption, in real-time, for households and businesses.
Trained for peak performance: five years of real-world and in-lab AI training
Powerverse has undergone a five-year programme of real-world and in-lab AI training, while in development at Lightsource Labs.
At its research and development hub in central London, Powerverse designed and built a ‘simulated smart home’, capable of mimicking a variety of home-energy scenarios to train the AI platform to optimise a number of different appliances – e.g. EV chargers, solar panels, heat pumps etc.
Over the same period, Powerverse’s Vesta has been plugged into hundreds of homes across the UK, optimising their day-to-day home energy needs to train the platform using real-world data.
Scaling to meet the challenge
Powerverse plans to have 250,000 customers using its AI platform in the next five years.
With skyrocketing demand for EVs, domestic solar and heat pumps, the auto and residential sectors are at the forefront of the UK’s drive for electrification and decarbonisation. Recognising this, Powerverse is prioritising partnerships in these sectors to supercharge growth and transform the UK’s energy landscape in the shortest possible time frames. It will also sell directly to customers via its website and app.
Midsummer, one of the UK’s largest distributors of renewable energy systems, has been a partner of the business since 2021, and Powerverse is in discussions with over 20 other major partners to distribute the platform.
Commenting on the launch of Powerverse, Nick Boyle, Global CEO and founder of Lightsource bp, said: “In just over a decade, we scaled Lightsource bp from small-scale start-up to global solar superpower. Now, at a time when the energy transition enters homes across the UK, energy anxiety – the fear of complex unfamiliar technology and overwhelming choice – is the number one barrier to a clean energy future. Powerverse, just like Lightsource bp in 2010, is poised to meet the challenge head-on and scale to become the UK’s leading energy management service.”
