Computer processing on the heata unit generates heat which is transferred into the water in your cylinder. This means that your existing heating system has to use less energy to get the water to temperature. Think of it a bit like solar thermal; when it's sunny it heats your water, reducing the amount of energy your main heating system needs to use. When the heata unit is processing it's having the same effect.

The trial is scheduled to last a year. At the end of the trial you might be able to continue being part of the heata network, depending on how things go.

A useful base load. If the heata unit ran all day it would deliver about 4.8kWh of hot water which is about the amount of hot water an average household uses. In practice the utilisation level will be lower and sometimes the water will be at temperature so the heata unit won't be able to run. We think it could deliver up to 80% of an average household's hot water, with good compute utilisation. This trial will help us learn more about how this will work in practice and enable us to give you a useful amount of free hot water at the same time.

Your existing heating system will kick in less often as the heata unit has already provided some heat to the water. In some cases it will have provided enough hot water (your existing heating system won't kick in at all), in other cases your existing heating system might kick in to top-up the hot water.

We may also put a few smaller holes (just in the foam) at different heights for temperature sensors, so we can measure the cylinder temperature.

The trial is funded by Innovate UK and heata will pay for the electricity used by the heata unit. Depending on your supplier, we’ll either directly credit your energy account, or your bank account. An accredited billing submeter with a readable screen is included as part of the installation, which we will read remotely to get the details for your credit amounts.

In the future we plan to install a dedicated fibre or 4G/5G connection for the heata unit.

Yes, you’ll still have hot water as it works alongside your current central heating system, which will provide hot water if the heata unit isn't working.

The trial unit fans are like standard PC fans in terms of noise levels. We've heard from one trial host (whose airing cupboard is in their bedroom) that the heata unit doesn't bother them at night.

Businesses run their processing on the heata units as a more sustainable alternative to using a data centre. This enables them to reduce the carbon impact of their compute, and deliver a social benefit to you - the households hosting the heata units.

If not we will remove the elements we've installed and re-insulate the section of the cylinder that the heata unit was attached to.