Engineers at the E.ON Future Lab have now developed an innovation that puts customers on the winning side: they also benefit when their data is used and gain better control over the analytics of this data.
Image: E.ON earns patent for patent for customer data analytics. Photo: Courtesy of E.ON.
E.ON has registered the unique IT-system for a patent. The European Patent Office has now made the patent application public.
The box, the size of a €5 bill, can be installed in a household, administrative building or company. There it collects data, for example from smart home applications, evaluates it and makes it usable. Only the customer is able to decide who can access which part of his data stream. In addition, he can use the box to earn money by releasing selected data analytics for use. E.ON acts as an intermediary and service provider – but only gains access if the customer expressly agrees. Highly secure encryption in conjunction with blockchain technology prevents data from being stolen or manipulated.
“Digital patents are rare – but our Future Lab team has managed to combine blockchain and big data with a simple hardware solution. We want our customers to have absolute control over the analysis of their data. The ability to sell parts of these analyses within a more secure, traceable framework is completely new,” says Matthew Timms, Chief Digital and Technology Officer of E.ON.
The prototype has passed the international safety tests and has already been certified by the German testing laboratory SGS. At the end of the year it will be used by the first test customers. The first products can be developed as early as next year.
The publication number of the patent is EP 3 512 228 A1.
Source: Company Press Release