Building upon impact from initial pilot in Los Angeles, the 50L Home Coalition will conduct an innovation pilot project in London to test and validate water and energy reduction in homes.
The 50L Home coalition envisions a future where urban water use is reinvented to promote water security and reduce carbon emissions (by saving energy used to heat water) without compromising comfort and quality of life, making 50 liters per person per day feel like 500 liters. This ambitious goal, if achieved at scale, could reduce energy consumption, accelerate the journey to net zero, and help alleviate household water and energy costs in cities around the world.
The coalition will bring together various industry leaders to showcase the consumer and not yet commercially available technologies that exist today to drive down urban water usage in the home and the energy that hot water requires, while learning how these changes can help improve people’s lives in London, throughout Europe, and beyond. By leveraging the collaborative efforts of policymakers, technology innovators, the private sector, research organizations, and communities, the pilot aims to test and develop groundbreaking solutions for water management and urban sustainability.
One of the primary goals in the coalition’s London pilot will be to find efficiencies in the Water-Energy-Carbon nexus. The 50L Home Coalition analyzed key aspects of the interplay between energy and water over the past year in a series of roundtables in London, summarized in our action paper “Operationalizing Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus for Homes”, to be launched on October 8 at the 50L Action Paper Launch Event featuring panel discussions.
The London pilot will build on the learnings of the Los Angeles (LA) pilot, which was launched a year ago with the help of implementing partner U.S. Green Building Council California. The pilot monitored daily water and hot water usage per person in a test group of houses in LA. The test group houses were retrofitted with fixtures and appliances from IKEA, Kohler, and Electrolux Group, as well as products from Procter & Gamble, all designed to save water and energy. Meanwhile, a control group of houses did not receive any products, appliances, or fixtures. Preliminary and partial results have shown that after 7 months, the test group has reduced their total indoor water usage by 19% and their hot water usage by 11% compared to their previous consumption, and each by 24% compared to the control group. The coalition has also teamed up with Flume, Droople, Sense, and Rainbird for monitoring water and energy consumption.
The overall intent of these pilots is to develop innovations in an integrated and holistic manner to create a path towards scaled superior water and energy and efficiency. Specifically, the pilots aim to gather valuable consumer insights and technical learnings, identify and articulate incentives schemes that could support the replication of pilots to scale fast adoption.
The coalition is recruiting UK-based partners and members to support the development of the pilot and further advance sustainability goals.