This week sees the first stage of our partnership with The Guardian come to an end. If you have visited the British Gas Smart Homes microsite, you have seen information on our latest smart technology, energy saving tips, an infographic about energy use and even a competition to win an eco-friendly holiday to Cornwall. 

From smart meters to solar panels, the aim of our partnership with The Guardian is to show how everyone could live energy smart and to prove our point we enlisted the help of journalist, wife and mother of two, Lucy Jolin. 

Challenging Lucy and her family to live a more energy efficient life, we installed British Gas smart meters in her home. The Jolin’s were provided with one smart meter for electricity and one for gas, plus a smart energy monitor to help the family visualise their energy consumption in near real time.  They were also given our Remote Heating Control technology, which allowed Lucy to control the central heating from her mobile phone, computer and iPad. This proved a money (and plant) saver when the Jolin’s were holidaying during our typically unpredictable British summer.  

The Jolin’s completed their green challenge a more energy aware family and with more money in their pockets. Using the smart energy monitor to educate the kids on energy efficiency and keeping an eye on the traffic light system, where red equals high energy use and green signals low energy use, were just two ways in which the smart meters allowed Lucy to drive her family’s energy use down, and they haven’t looked back since. After completing the green challenge, Lucy is eager to find other ways of increasing her home’s energy efficiency by investigating options such as smart plugs, which automatically turn off appliances not in use. 

Our competition to win an eco-friendly holiday to Cornwall closes this Friday 28th September at midnight, so get your entries in quickly and you could be heading to a luxury retreat for the ultimate in green relaxation. We’ll be launching a brand new competition next week where you can win a weekend in Iceland, so make sure you pay a visit to our Smart Homes hub on Monday!