NESO app
Redesign the National Energy System Operator (NESO) app to make it genuinely useful for people who want to reduce their at-home carbon footprint
Info
Personal Project
2024/5
Time spent not loads :]
The thinking behind this project started long before home energy smart meters became mainstream. The spark came from a talk on sustainable energy I attended, which explored how the National Grid continuously balances supply and demand across the network — and how that process sits at the heart of the UK's shift toward a lower carbon footprint.
What struck me most was a simple but powerful idea: people could actively support that shift by running high-energy appliances — dishwashers, heaters, car chargers — during periods of lower grid demand, or when renewable input means carbon intensity is at its lowest.
The existing app
That idea led me to the NESO app, which looked like this at the time…
…and even after a rebrand, it still looks like this…
I wanted to redesign it into something genuinely useful — a practical tool for people like me who want to reduce their environmental impact at home, without having to think too hard about it.
I started with sketches and wireframes and it quickly became clear that the right move was to strip the app back to its core. Features like daily planning tools, regional carbon intensity rankings, and historical record displays aren't what most users actually need.
The version I wanted to build was simpler: something I could glance at and immediately understand the current carbon intensity — in plain language — alongside a short-term forecast. Nothing more, nothing less. I also discovered existing app shows 24 hours of forecast, after investigating the API that feeds it I realised more data was available so the new design makes the most of this showing a 3 day forecast.
Watch this space… I hope to bring this into existance one day soon.
