Imperial postgraduates show how energy companies can fight climate change

Imperial postgraduates show how energy companies can fight climate change. MSc Sustainable Energy Futures team wins a national award at Wembley Stadium %0A " - Tuesday 7 April 2009 - By Colin Smith Postgraduates from Imperial College London have won first prize in a national competition for their proposal that could help a major energy company and its customers to combat climate change. Imperial students on the MSc course in Sustainable Energy Futures won the npower Energy Challenge competition at Wembley Stadium last month. They beat seven other teams from universities such as Oxford and Cambridge to take home £10,000 in prize money. The team, consisting of Alan Whitaker, Andy Hadland, Gaurav Monga and Philipp Gruenewald, won the competition for their proposal that showed how the energy company could get their customers to enter into new energy efficiency agreements and make a profit in the process. Philipp Gruenwald says: "At the moment, if people save energy at home, power companies lose money because they are selling less energy to their customers. We came up with an idea that could help npower to make money and save the planet at the same time." The team's idea would see customers signing new long-term contracts with npower, who would, in return, agree to install products such as loft and wall insulation, along with new heating systems to make homes more energy efficient.