The Challenge
A national research group wanted to securely collect sensitive energy data from Australian homes, but the project was still at the big-idea stage.
The team understood the research ambition, but needed help turning it into clear requirements, a practical technical direction, and a working platform.
The risk was that the project would become expensive, overcomplicated, and difficult to deliver before the research model had even been proven.
Our Approach
Innovate Design Build helped the team clarify what the platform actually needed to do.
The work focused on the essentials: securely collect household data, transform and de-identify it, preserve traceability and research integrity, satisfy privacy and security expectations, keep infrastructure cost low, and create a path from proof-of-concept to future scale.
The design deliberately avoided unnecessary technical sprawl.
The Execution
Innovate Design Build designed and implemented the working platform.
The solution used managed cloud services and automation to collect, process, de-identify and prepare data for controlled research use.
The work moved the project from vague ambition to a functioning research platform with a clear operating model.
The Results
Projected infrastructure costs were reduced by more than 99.87%, while still supporting high-granularity data collection from thousands of homes.
The implemented infrastructure avoided approximately 100kg of CO₂ during the proof-of-concept and helped validate the research model for future funding.