Good for Nothing

Can we help create an open source home energy monitor as part of a campaign to increase our homes' energy efficiency?

Venture: Carbon Coop

Carbon Co-op is all about bringing householders together to help reduce their energy bills and their carbon emissions through whole house retrofit.

We believe the process of improving our homes to 2050 standards will be quicker, easier and cheaper if we work together, teaming up with friends and neighbours to share experience, knowledge and reduce costs through bulk purchase.

Established in 2008, we are a group of Greater Manchester residents who’ve begun to carry out changes in our own houses and communities, we've teamed up with housing specialists to look at what more we can do where we live.

As a co-operative, a community benefit society, our organisation is owned and run by the householders who make up it's members, we have no external shareholders or owners making profits, all resources are kept within the co-operative.

Challenge 1: Open energy Monitors

In order to help our households understand their current energy usage and test the effectiveness of the measures they install, we are developing an energy monitor package. Using low cost, open source components and systems we're building our own monitoring system.

We're looking for developers and designers to help us:

  • design and build a web based dashboard for householders to view their energy usage
  • develop new dashboard features for the open-source data collection software, emoncms, to suit our specific needs.
  • investigate ways to incorporate this into our existing Drupal website.
  • build an instruction pack for the monitors
  • design and make a low cost packaging bundle in order to distribute the monitors

Challenge 2: Membership drive campaign

We want to run a campaign to expand the number of people we help. Householders can join the Carbon Co-op as members for an annual fee of £35. In doing so they benefit from the support we offer and help resource the work we do.

By working co-operating members benefit from:

  • sharing access to specialist technical knowledge
  • pooling orders to create bulk discount
  • access to cheaper finance and loan deals
  • support and knowledge from other co-op members

We would like to create a complimentary set of marketing materials to run a membership campaign. Elements of the campaign might include:

  • A promotional poster
  • A membership card
  • Email lists
  • A marketing emailer
  • A members' pack for new applicants

How can I help?

You can make a start on this challenge simply by contributing ideas, or get stuck right in and share your work with the community here. Login or join the movement to get started!