News | Sunday, 21 December 2008

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Maltese IT specialist finds way out of electricity price hikes

David Darmanin
Having lived the student way for the past years, budding IT entrepreneur Richard Muscat has developed a knack for keeping his daily expenses under control.
Sitting inside his Aberdeen apartment, he could not just wait for his electricity bills to skyrocket. So along with American software developer Jim Sims – who was not too happy about the bills at his Valletta house either – Muscat created a software package that helped the two reduce their electricity usage by a fifth.
And here’s how it works:
“When it comes to finding ways to cut down your electricity cost at home, many find the options too trivial or too expensive. Most are impossible for many households. So instead of sitting back and paying our bills we decided to carry out some research. We started by listing 45 electricity points at my house in Aberdeen. After that, we analysed consumption and daily usage. By reading on that data, we managed to cut down on our electricity usage by 20%,” he said.
TakeCharge is a portable software which does not require any hardware, eliminating distribution and installation. “What do you do if you install a solar panel at a rental apartment? You take it with you when you move out? We made it a point not to include any hardware in the package,” Muscat said.
Fine, but how does the software connect to household appliances without hardware? The answer is simple: manually. “Our most major task was actually simplifying the entire process, and we’re still working on this aspect.”
“What we’re planning at this point in time is to build a comprehensive database of typical appliances in a household. Users will fill in a start-up wizard, on which they use a template to fill in details pertaining to their household appliances. We are also looking at roping in environmental NGOs in order to educate users on how to best fill in their specifications.
“In simpler terms, users would fill in a questionnaire, type in their geographical position, the type of residence, the number of rooms and in the case of countries with different electricity providers, the name of their supplier. The intricate part of the database would be to work out the usage on peak and off-peak times, comparing it to your previous bills and fluctuating prices, or tariff rates for different types of households or social welfare schemes.”

Smart savers
Right now, Muscat and Sims are putting the software licences on the market at less than €50 a pop, but they need to set up a small team, a modest marketing team and get the show going. Trouble is, they happen to be some €450,000 short.
As it happened, Muscat applied for one of the world’s most prestigious technology business plan competitions, making it to the final 30 (from some 300 applicants) to present his case to the Le Web conference in Paris attended by 2,000 top entrepreneurs and a panel of judges which included Microsoft and Google vice-presidents.
TackCharge may have not placed among the four winners last Wednesday, but the exposure it got is already encouraging.
What is less encouraging is the shut doors they found when they asked government to fund their trip to Paris.
Back from Le Web this week, Muscat told MaltaToday that since other competitors where already in advanced stages of their business plans, TakeCharge did not place among the first four.
“In spite of this, we did very well in terms of raising interest. We have been approached by a French energy company, two private investors, two UK media companies and a couple of German entrepreneurs in the monitoring devices business. Whoever spoke to us gave us excellent feedback,” he said.
“We haven’t concluded anything yet, so I would rather not give out the names. But some of them are big names, and all are very well established.”
Short of the needed €450,000 fund he needs, Muscat now is considering developing TakeCharge on a shoestring budget. “You can never be too confident, but if there is one area that’s growing it’s definitely the sector of energy clean technology. We were approached by companies interested in purchasing the product in bulk for re-distribution, and if we can clinch this sort of deal, we may not need a start-up investment at all.”
In a few months, users will now be able to download the software and use it, albeit with a number of errors that will be fixed prior to the launch of the final product.
Their doors are open to different types of funding or assistance which could take the idea to the market.

Utility hike fears
However, it is certain that they can hardly carry on investing an indefinite amount of time on a product whose prospects of revenue remain bleak. With the whole energy tariffs hullabaloo in Malta, asking government for help could be attractive to a Cabinet that needs to be seen helping people save up on their electricity bills.
“We did speak to government and we got mixed reactions,” Muscat said. “The conference was pretty expensive to attend. Apart from the €1,000 registration fee, we spent some €4,000 to cover the conference cost.
“We spoke to the Ministry of IT, to Malta Enterprise, to the Resources Ministry and MITTS. We also asked SmartCity for sponsorship. We got nothing, which is strange when one considers that we are trying to push Malta as a technology hub.
“But I have to say that the people at the IT Ministry were very helpful in getting us in touch with other entities and people. Some other departments and ministries however, either did not bother to reply or have practically told us that they are not interested in discussing with us. Thankfully, the EU funding section at Malta Enterprise have granted us a meeting at a later stage so we can identify what support schemes are available.”

ddarmanin@mediatoday.com.mt

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.