The IoT has been heralded as the bringer of many wild and wonderful benefits, from cars that drive themselves in for repairs to fridges that order more ice cream when your supply is getting dangerously low. But British company Open Energi Ltd. is harnessing the benefits of connectivity to bring customers more efficient, more affordable, and, ultimately, cleaner energy.

Joining John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Hadoop Summit in Dublin, Ireland, David Hill, business development director at Open Energi Ltd., talked about what Open Energi does, how its software works, and the benefits of being a Hortonworks’ customer.

Transferring the value back to the consumer

Millions of devices have small amounts of stored energy that is currently unused. Open Energi’s software accesses this energy and aggregates and provisions it where and when it is needed. This has the dual benefit of stopping expenses due to peaking demand and providing a revenue stream for customers, as well as smoothing the energy-use pattern across the board for efficiency.

The UK’s more liberalized energy system, where customers are able to choose their energy provider, has been instrumental in allowing energy-use experiments. However, “similar things are happening in the USA,” said Hill.

Connectivity is the key first step

The biggest energy-consuming machines are old and not smart, Hill explained. He gave a case of a large water pump that controlled the levels of water in a dock to keep boats afloat. The control system consisted of a guy who would watch levels and crank the pump up when the levels needed to be raised! A large amount of energy was latent in the pump, but could not be accessed. Although connecting the pump to the Internet is costly, the savings make it worthwhile. As smaller items, like fridges or electric kettles, become connected, the available pool of devices will grow and the opportunities for accessing and efficiently redistributing the energy will grow.

“We were an IoT company before we even knew what IoT was,” said Hill, discussing how Open Energi was founded pre-Hadoop. Becoming Hadoop customers was a “huge leap,” and Hortonworks DataFlow services are enabling much more cost-effective integration that has Hill extremely excited about the future.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Hadoop Summit 2016 – Dublin. And make sure to join in during theCUBE’s live coverage during the event by joining in on CrowdChat.

Photo by SiliconANGLE