Airex developed the world’s first smart air brick solution; a novel, patented technology that helps reducing heat demand while maintaining the healthy levels of indoor air quality in homes.
The Airex innovation was born out the founders’ passion to tackle fuel poverty and climate change, and the realisation that fuel poverty still exists today in one of the most developed parts of the world. This frustration triggered the desire to do something to address the problem. A joint research project conducted with a well-regarded academic researcher, Dr Sofie Pelsmakers, created this opportunity. She identified just how much heat loss is attributed to an overlooked area within buildings: air bricks.
Airex was able to secure an R&D government grant funding through Innovate UK’s “Energy Game Changer” programme in 2016. This allowed Airex to onboard a fantastic team of engineers and product designers who built the first prototypes to test the hypothesis. These first trials made clear how significant an impact the technology could have and the need to commercialise the product to reach the scale required to have a meaningful impact. Airex then secured a series of further Innovate UK R&D grant funding that allowed them to further develop their products and becoming ready for commercialisation.
In 2020 Airex successfully completed the UK’s first ECO Demonstration Action programme, approved by Ofgem. This robust field trial analysed over 6 million datapoints, independently validated Airex’s potential to reduce heat loss by 12% whilst maintaining healthy humidity levels. In 2021 Airex was awarded by BEIS under the “Energy Entrepreneur Award” - a significant R&D government support that enabled the team to redesign for mass-manufacture to prepare for scaling. In 2021 Airex received significant investment from Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital to support scaling.
Airex has been approved by the Scottish Government to be rolled out as part of the Warmer Homes Scotland scheme and built strong partnerships with prestigious organisations such as EDF, Octopus Energy, Wates – as well as having been deployed across 15 social housing providers (from Portsmouth to Aberdeen).
Airex won multiple industry awards, including:
“Business Green Technology Award Cleantech Startup of the Year 2017”;
“Business Green Technology Award Building Technology of the Year 2018”;
“EDF Pulse Award finalists 2018”;
“Innovate UK Women in Innovation award 2019”;
“Royal Academy of Engineering SME Leaders Award 2020”;
“Business Green Leaders Award Energy Efficiency Project of the Year 2021”
“Product of the Year 2022 @ National Energy Efficiency Awards”
Airex was featured in the Times, Sunday Times, BBC news, BBC One, Fully Charged Show and presented at COP26 – UN Climate Change Conference.
