CrowdFlex research participant information sheet – Ohme

Date: 22 April 2025

Introduction to customer feedback survey

We’d like to hear about your experiences of taking part in the CrowdFlex trial. Everyone who participated in the trial has been invited to take part in the feedback survey.

The survey is run by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) a charity that supports people and organisations across the UK to transform our energy system and tackle the climate emergency.

CSE is running this independent customer feedback survey for the National Energy System Operator (NESO), one of the lead partners in CrowdFlex, and in collaboration with Ohme. Further information on the trial is available here.

What are the aims of the survey?

CrowdFlex aims to understand how domestic flexibility can be used to help manage the electricity grid. Domestic flexibility refers to households shifting the times they use energy to help balance supply and demand. 

The surveys are an opportunity for you to tell us how you participated in the trial. This will help us to design flexibility services which ultimately support a greener and fairer energy system. The insights from the survey will be shared with both government and industry stakeholders so they can understand how best to support consumers to participate and benefit.

What’s involved?

The survey will take about 15 minutes to complete. You’ll be asked for your views about taking part, what you did, and any challenges you encountered.

There will also be questions asking about you and your household. This will help us to understand who is taking part in CrowdFlex and how they experienced the trial.

Most of the questions are multiple choice. Any mandatory questions are indicated with an asterisk. The remaining questions are optional, and you can skip these if they don’t apply to you, or you don’t feel comfortable answering them.

What are the timescales?

The survey will be open from Monday 12 May to Thursday 22 May 2025.

Are there prizes?

Yes! After completing the survey, you can choose to enter a prize draw. There are eight prizes: a top prize of £150 in shopping vouchers, and seven further prizes of £50 in shopping vouchers. The winners will be picked at random. Ohme will share the winners’ email addresses with CSE so that the winners can receive their digital shopping vouchers.

Click here for the prize draw terms and conditions.

Will my response be anonymous?

Your response to the survey will be anonymous to CSE. We will not receive any personal information about you (e.g., name, contact details) from Ohme. Instead, you will have a unique survey ID assigned to you which Ohme can use to identify you. This is to help manage and monitor the survey responses and prize draw applicants.

Any comments that you make in the survey may be anonymously quoted in publications, reports, web pages, and other research outputs. You will not be identifiable in any published results.    

What data will you collect and how will you use it?

We will collect your answers to the survey. Any information you provide in the survey will be used by CSE researchers to evaluate the CrowdFlex trial.

Some of the questions in the survey cover sensitive data such as whether you have any health conditions, your gender, and your ethnicity. We are asking for this information in order to understand who is taking part in CrowdFlex and how flexibility services can be designed to be accessible to lots of different people. Although it is anonymous, under data protection regulations this is classed as special category data which requires extra consent. We will ask for your consent for processing this data in the survey. Our lawful basis for processing under Article 6 of the UK GDPR is ‘consent’.

In addition to your survey answers, we will receive some trial data from Ohme. This will include things like the level of rewards different types of households received. However, we will not be able to identify you or your household in any trial data that Ohme shares with us.

CSE will share the anonymised survey results with CrowdFlex trial partners and they will be published by CrowdFlex partners. 

Will Ohme have my feedback?

You can choose to share your survey answers with Ohme. Ohme will use your survey data to understand more about services like CrowdFlex and help shape future products and services.

You will be asked if you would like to do this in the survey. You can still participate in the survey if you say no. If you consent, CSE will securely transfer a copy of your survey answers to them.

What happens to my data after the trial?

At the end of the trial, CSE will fully anonymise all survey responses, meaning that it will no longer be possible to identify your individual answers. CSE will store the anonymised survey responses for future research purposes.

The anonymised survey responses will then be transferred for secure archiving by NESO. This data can then be used by the government, industry stakeholders and academics for future research. You will be asked in the survey if you agree to your data being anonymised and archived for future research. You can still participate in the survey if you say no.

What happens if I no longer want to participate?

Your participation is completely voluntary. You are free to end the survey at any time without completing it. You can also withdraw your consent for CSE to use any information you have shared. To do this please email crowdflex.info@cse.org.uk. However, once the data has been completely anonymised at the end of the trial, it will not be possible to identify and delete your individual answers.

Will you have access to my smart meter or energy bills?

No, CSE will not have access to your smart meter, or smart meter data or energy bills. Ohme will provide us with anonymised data derived from your smart meter (for example, trial response and reward received) which will be matched to your survey data.

How will you keep my information safe?

All information shared by you for this research will be kept strictly confidential. CSE will only use the data in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. Your personal data will be processed in line with the Data Protection Act 2018 on the lawful basis of consent. CSE will ensure protection of all personal information held and recognises its obligations in maintaining a system that meets the requirements of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Click here to access CSE’s full privacy policy. CSE’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) registration is Z7115671.

Contact for further information

If you would like to get in touch with CSE about the research, please email crowdflex.info@cse.org.uk.