Npower Asks Developers For Energy-Saving Apps

Energy company npower has launched a competition challenging developers to produce a prototype app that will enable consumers to measure and manage their everyday energy consumption.

Now in its second year, npower’s Developer Challenge 2014 offers a £10,000 prize to the creator of the best mobile, tablet or laptop app, and is backed by D&AD, a British educational charity for the design and advertising field, as part of its ‘New Blood Awards’.

npower wants more people to access and manage their bills online, having found that one in three of its customers accessed their energy bill on a mobile devicein 2013, and that mobile device traffic to its homepage doubled during the year.

Energy-saving

The winner must be a stand-alone design that combines data from npower with other third party or device based data in order to encourage customers to use energy more wisely, whilst also being ‘fun and interesting’. No more than five people can be involved in the development process, and the app must be an original, fully-functional prototype compatible with the latest version of Safari for iOS on the iPad and Chrome on a 9.7-10in Android tablet

Last year’s competition was won by Jonathan Blades, who designed an app which used house-hunting app Zoopla to allow home buyers to see energy costs for their prospective properties. Npower is currently working with him to develop this idea into its Home Move app, which is expected to be released for download in the next few months.

Blades will join the judging panel for this year’s competition, which will also include Roger Hattam, npower’s Director of Domestic Retail Business, Jon Drinkwater, head of digital at npower, and two other industry guest judges.

“As a business, every decision we make is driven by our customers,” said Paul Massara the CEO of npower. “We have identified trends in our customers’ behaviour and are responding to these directly by commissioning ideas around an energy saving app.”

The deadline for entries is 30 May, after which a shortlist of the best entries will be compiled, with the winner of the grand prize announced on 15 August, with three runners-up also  receiving a £500 Amazon voucher.

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