Lightsource Labs launches Tribe in the UK

• Midsummer to become first commercial partner for Lightsource Labs in the UK
• Tribe is designed to increase customers’ self-consumption and energy savings by up to 20 percent
• Midsummer and Lightsource Labs have partnered with Huawei to offer a fully-integrated solar, battery and energy management solution.

Lightsource Labs, Lightsource bp’s in-house energy technology business, today announces its partnership with renewable technology distributor Midsummer. Midsummer has onboarded Lightsource Labs’ home energy management technology – Tribe – to differentiate its offering to its solar and battery customers. Tribe is designed to be the centre of the connected home and consists of a hardware hub and smartphone app through which users can monitor, control and schedule devices to reduce energy costs by up to 20 percent. Through its market-leading compatibility with a wide range of connected devices – including solar inverters, batteries and electric vehicle chargers – Tribe enables customers to coordinate all assets from a single app.

Tribe incorporates machine-learning algorithms which optimise when devices consume and store electricity. By learning patterns in a household’s electricity consumption, and using weather forecasts and live price information, Tribe automatically schedules devices, like a washing machine, on the users’ behalf. This maximises the use of the solar generation and off-peak electricity from the grid.

Lightsource Labs is working with Midsummer to grow distribution of the Tribe technology via solar installers, housing developers and landlords. Lightsource Labs is also working with Utilities and grid operators who can unlock additional value from Tribe-connected assets aggregated into a Virtual Power Plant (VPP). Tribe’s VPP can deliver balancing and additional support to the Electricity System Operators and local flexibility to Distribution Network Operators, which can unlock new revenue streams and cost-saving opportunities for partners. Lightsource Labs recently won contracts to deliver local flexibility services to DNOs UK Power Networks and Western Power Distribution.

Huawei partnership

As part of the launch, Midsummer and Lightsource Labs have partnered with Huawei to offer a fully integrated solar, battery and energy management solution to customers. This incorporates Tribe and the latest generation hybrid inverter and battery system from Huawei. For a limited time, customers of Midsummer can purchase the full Tribe and Huawei bundle at a large introductory discount. The offer is on a first-come, first-served basis and customers can contact Midsummer to find out more.

Ben Kott, CEO of Lightsource Labs, comments:

“After all the hard work behind the scenes it’s great to partner with Midsummer and to start offering solar installers and their customers our home energy management technology alongside their solar and battery systems. With an increasing number of flexible loads in the home and the launch of innovative time-of-use tariffs, the opportunity to orchestrate and optimise connected devices to improve self-consumption and minimise energy bills is growing. Having integrated Tribe with Huawei’s latest battery and inverter system, we’re excited to offer customers an all-in-one bundle composed of market-leading technology.”

Jamie Vaux, Commercial Director for Midsummer, comments:

“We’re delighted to be partnering with Lightsource Labs on launching Tribe in the UK. Managing and optimising home energy flows is the key to making homeowners’ energy assets work for them, and something that they are looking for – especially if it can improve their savings and learn their needs. 

“The recent announcement regarding Lightsource Labs’ commercial partnerships with DNOs means customers stand to benefit from Tribe’s key role in offering local flexibility services to the grid, by controlling both generation and storage assets. 

“We’re pleased to be able to offer the introductory discount, pairing Tribe with Huawei Fusionsolar’s cutting edge Luna hybrid and battery storage system. The tech giant needs no introduction, and linking their smart modular system with the powerful control platform of Tribe makes perfect sense, we will be running training sessions on how to combine both products. We’re always keen to work with forward-looking partners and ensure our product range is the most cutting-edge available.

Michael Rae, Channel Director for Huawei, comments:

“We are excited to be part of this innovative offering for UK solar customers as a result of the extensive interoperability testing which has been conducted by the R&D teams at Huawei and Lightsource Labs. Huawei’s One-Fits-All Residential Smart PV Solution comprises inverter, energy storage, optimiser, power sensor, etc. to provide up to 30 percent more energy yield, and equipped with AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter) function to detect arc faults and shutdown the inverter in 0.5 seconds. Integrating Huawei’s solution with Tribe puts customers in control of their energy usage and Midsummer has harnessed this technology to create a unique offering which will help their customers move further towards self-consumption of solar power and reduce their energy costs.”