Expression of interest: household heating design aids
The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) invites expressions of interest from organisations that could
work with them in providing a technical service design expertise for an internal project on a
consultancy basis to assist in their Smart Systems and Heat programme.
Context
The ETI is a public-private partnership between global energy and engineering companies – BP,
Caterpillar, EDF, Rolls-Royce and Shell – and the UK Government. The ETI is focused on
accelerating the deployment of affordable, secure low-carbon energy systems for 2020 to 2050 by
demonstrating technologies, developing knowledge, skills and supply-chains and informing the
development of regulation, standards and policy.
Today about 20% of UK CO2 emissions come from how people use heat and hot water at home.
This must be effectively eliminated by 2050 to meet carbon targets at the lowest cost. The ETI’s
Smart Systems and Heat (SSH) programme takes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to solving
this challenge. Hitachi is an Associate Member of the SSH programme.
As part of the SSH programme, the ETI conducts consumer research to help guide efforts to
decarbonise heating. We are using this evidence to help inform the design of low carbon heating
systems and control technologies. We now plan to build our internal capability to use this evidence
through the design of visual tools.
Aim
Through a three year research project we have built a detailed understanding of why households
use heat and hot water at home as they do. This is contained both within formal research
deliverables (written reports, survey data, spreadsheets and graphs) and ETI staff knowledge. We
now want to set up contractual arrangements so we can work with service designers to create tools
that enable others to rapidly understand what this data means and engage with relevant details
creatively. Ultimately the aim of these tools is to inform the design of products, services and policies
so that they can successfully decarbonise heating in the UK.
Approach
The following sections explain what type of work we require and our approach to procurement.
Work description
We want to engage organisations with service design experience to help scope the detail of how we
tackle our challenge. To that end, we plan to break down our challenge into a small number of tasks
so we can describe the outcome we want, rather than a pre-specified solution we are tied to. For
each set of tasks we will discuss and agree the outputs we require, deadline for completion,
acceptance criteria and the total budget available.
We envisage that the first piece of work will be to develop a framework of graphic designs we can
combine to visualise a range of household heating scenarios. To do this we expect to need graphics
www.eti.co.uk
Delivering the UK’s Future Energy Technologies
1
Expression of interest: household heating design aids
Energy Technologies Institute
representing people of different genders and age; properties of different type and size; and heating
systems of different types. We also expect this task to involve creating frameworks that we can use
to organise graphics and text to describe key scenarios (e.g. a day in the life). The frameworks
should allow ETI staff to easily create a new scenario and add it to a Microsoft PowerPoint slide or
Microsoft Word document.
Subsequent tasks could potentially involve enriching these scenarios. For instance, it may involve
converting a set of scenarios into physical flash-cards, or enabling users to generate a new scenario
automatically and present it in a web browser. We expect to work very closely and collaboratively
using these types of tool on the challenges we face as the programme and thinking develops.
At this stage, we envisage working with a few people on a few, short focused tasks this year, and
growing the relationship organically over time if these early tasks are fruitful.
Contractual arrangements
Our plan is to enter into framework agreements with two suitable partners to broaden the range of
expertise we have access to and decrease the risk that any one partner will be unavailable at critical
points in time. The agreement will set out the terms under which we can call off work for sets of
tasks.
Before giving an instruction for works, we would discuss and agree scope, activities, deliverables
and budget. Payment would either be against an agreed fixed cost or on a time and materials basis
against a schedule of rates set out in the framework agreement.
Selection criteria
If you are interested in working with us in this way, please complete and send us the Expression of
Interest form below so we can select a set of suitable suppliers. We will be looking for evidence of
how well you meet the following criteria:








Experience: a high quality team available to work with us.
Value for money
Interdisciplinary: explained evidence from one discipline to experts in another.
Clear communicators: used layout, colour and form to communicate clearly in various media.
Service design: develop tools that enable designers to keep key constraints in mind when they work.
User experience: developed working user interfaces from concept to delivery.
Creative: able to understand our problem and suggest improvements to our approach.
Collaborative: willing to spend time working directly with our team in Birmingham.
Timetable




August 19th: Publish the EOI
September 10th: Deadline for submitting a response
September: Contract with winning bidder
October: Finalise detailed scope of works
www.eti.co.uk
Delivering the UK’s Future Energy Technologies
2
Expression of interest: household heating design aids
Energy Technologies Institute
Expression of interest form
Parties expressing an interest in completing this work should complete and submit the form below,
by e-mail in Adobe PDF and Microsoft Word formats to ssh@eti.co.uk by September 10th, 2015.
Details of organisation
Organisation name:
Contact details (name, job title, mailing address, e-mail address, phone number):
Type of business (sole trader, limited company, partnership, etc):
Annual turnover:
Size of organisation (please separate the number of employees and associates):
Service offering (ideally with links to examples a non-expert can understand):
Quotes: Explain briefly your approach and approximate costs for completing the following
hypothetical tasks (accepting that in reality we will finalise each task through discussion)
Task 1: deliver a set of 4 household, 4 building and 7 heating system icons that fit into a
template reflecting a day in the life of a specific household. Include the costs of 3 meetings
in our Birmingham office to provide background, finalise scope and test the deliverables.
Task 2: create a set of physical flash-cards that enable engineers to think through the
consumers’ perspective when designing a heating system.
Task 3: design a half day workshop to enable a team to explore how well a proposed
heating system meets consumers’ needs and spend 2 days working with the team in the
Birmingham Office on that design challenge.
www.eti.co.uk
Delivering the UK’s Future Energy Technologies
3
Expression of interest: household heating design aids
Energy Technologies Institute
Design:
We’re interested in what you think great design is. In no more than a page of A4 please
explain what contribution you think design can make to reducing the carbon emissions
caused by how people use heat and hot water at home.
Track record:
Please demonstrate your capabilities by describing examples of your work. Set out your
specific contributions to relevant projects and feel free to include links to supplementary
supporting materials or to send us examples, if these help demonstrate your capabilities.
Project description, location, outline scope and
summary of your organisation’s specific role.
Start / End Dates
Total Budget and
Your % Share
Client testimonial: Please provide evidence of delivering value to previous clients. This
can take whatever form you feel is most convincing.
Key personnel: Please attach CVs of key personnel and provide their day rates
For the avoidance of doubt, this Expression of Interest and any Response shall not constitute an
offer and or an actual or implied agreement between the ETI and respondents to the Expression of
Interest. Project work is entirely dependent upon the ETI and a selected party (following a selection
process) mutually agreeing terms and conditions of contract.
© 2015 Energy Technologies Institute LLP. The information in this document is the property of Energy Technologies Institute LLP and may not be copied or communicated to a third
party or used for any purpose other than that for which it is supplied without the express written consent of Energy Technologies Institute LLP.
www.eti.co.uk
Delivering the UK’s Future Energy Technologies
4