Technology Provider of the Year
Winner:
Think Hire
Think Hire won edie’s Technology Provider of the Year Award for its off-grid Energy-as-a-Service model, which combines renewable energy, hybrid technology, advanced batteries and smart energy management to reduce diesel reliance from construction sites to remote wind farms.
The challenge
Think Hire powers sectors where clean, reliable energy was previously out of reach and diesel was once the only option – from EV machinery and tower cranes to mobile MRI units, and wind and solar farms during construction and testing phases.
The solution
Think Hire has been reshaping access to sustainable energy infrastructure since creating the world’s first adaptable solar hybrid generator, the Solartainer Versatile. Through a consultative, end-to-end Energy-as-a-Service approach, it supports clients from initial diesel displacement through HVO transition to full net-zero operations.
Its hardware innovations also include the world’s first glycerine-fuelled solar hybrid generator, a finalist at the edie Awards; glycerine, a biodiesel by-product, eliminates up to 99% of emissions versus diesel at a fraction of the cost. The SiteGrid X BESS industrial range (102kWh to 564kWh), launched in 2025 for high-demand applications such as tower cranes, cuts diesel runtime by more than 80%, with the 948kWh X1000+ in development.
How the project works
Think Energy Panorama manages the entire fleet in real time, unifying multiple sites into one visible ecosystem that tracks energy performance, environmental impact and costs. Predictive maintenance anticipates equipment failures before they happen, while an AI Analyst surfaces actionable insights and recommended actions across solar, fuel, generator, battery, grid and fleet at unit and fleet level. Clients have 24/7 access to customisable dashboards and automated reports for SECR, ESOS and PPN06 compliance, and automations developed for one client are deployed fleet-wide, raising standards for everyone.
Delivery is fully in-house, covering logistics, installation and 24/7 monitoring from teams in the UK and Australia. Units are delivered by an EV fleet, with engineers and site surveyors travelling in hybrid HGV transport, and field innovations feed directly back into product and platform development. As a CPD-accredited training provider, Think Hire also upskills client teams on sustainable energy systems.
For one client, Think Hire developed custom automation enabling generators to self-rectify common faults without human intervention, resolving 46 issues remotely, saving 92 hours of downtime, avoiding 104 tonnes of CO2 and saving 284,000 litres of fuel and £288,000, with 73% of power coming from battery and solar. The automation was rolled out fleet-wide in 2025.
The results
Between January 2025 and January 2026, Think Hire’s fleet avoided more than 19,600 tonnes of CO2, eliminated more than 11 million litres of diesel and delivered more than £10.4m in client savings, with a 78% renewable energy mix and a 76% reduction in air pollutants. From 1 January to 11 June 2026, the fleet avoided a further 11,509 tonnes of CO2, saved 6.1 million litres of fuel and delivered £7.5m in client savings, with a 75% renewable contribution.
Panorama now resolves 92% of fleet issues remotely, rising from 75% to 87% and then 92% over three years – every avoided callout means no vehicle dispatch, no diesel burned and no downtime. In 2025, Think Hire achieved 96.7% on-time delivery and 96.2% right-first-time. Industrial BESS deployments managed through Panorama across multiple major contractors’ sites have avoided 259 tonnes of CO2, saved 228,159 litres of fuel and £192,151, and achieved an 85.7% emissions reduction, while another client deployment avoided 210.5 tonnes of CO2 against HVO and eliminated more than 1 million litres of fuel with an 83% renewable mix.
Think Hire’s own Scope 1 and 2 emissions fell 28% in one year, 50% of its fleet is now electric, and it is targeting 48g/km LCV emissions by the end of 2026. Every depot operates off-grid on renewable energy, product carbon footprints are independently assured to ISO 14067:2018 – a first in the hire industry – and its SBTi-validated targets commit it to net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035. Think Hire holds ISO 14001, CCS Excellent, EcoVadis Bronze (top 35%) and Made in Britain accreditations, and co-hosted a round table with the University of Salford in October 2025.
At a glance
Who: Think Hire, a division of Think Energy Group
What: Relocatable off-grid power solutions and the Think Energy Panorama platform
Where: UK
Why: To deliver sustainable energy infrastructure where it was previously impossible, displacing diesel
When: 2025-26
Runners up
EnergyElephant
EnergyElephant replaces spreadsheets with a single platform for energy, waste, water and carbon data, automating the ingestion of utility invoices, sub-meters and smart meters, transport fuels and other activity data, then applying recognised methodologies to produce audit-ready output at meter, building and business-unit level. Data management and reporting time typically fell by over 90%. Client results include a bank with around 200 sites cutting operational emissions 64% against a 2020 baseline, a retailer with roughly 700 stores saving over £250,000 by identifying smart metering faults, and Dublin City Council onboarding more than 10,000 properties in under two weeks.
GreenStitch
GreenStitch is a sustainability platform built specifically for fashion and textiles, a sector responsible for an estimated 8 to 10% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. It combines Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon accounting, product lifecycle assessment across 16 environmental impact categories, supply chain decarbonisation modelling, digital product passports and reporting aligned to CSRD, SBTi, CDP and other frameworks. Where supplier data is missing, region-specific defaults drawn from a library of over 100,000 emission factors allow clients to build accuracy incrementally. The platform now has over 12 million tonnes of CO2e under management, with 95% customer retention.
Humans Not Robots
Humans Not Robots addresses the cost and carbon of digital infrastructure, an area where energy use is rising sharply with AI adoption but where most organisations still lack workload-level data. Its HNR to ZERO platform gathers telemetry across cloud, on-premises and AI environments to build an auditable baseline, then applies analytics and causal machine learning to identify where energy, carbon and cost can be cut. Clients achieved up to 20% carbon reduction and 30% cost savings within 12 months, and up to 80% lower network energy use over three years in targeted media deployments using multicast architectures.
IES
IES combines physics-based building simulation with operational energy management, pairing its IESVE modelling software with IES Live, which brings metered data and simulation into one environment so predicted and actual performance can be compared and drift corrected. The approach reflects a market shifting from theoretical compliance towards measured in-use performance. At United Wholesale Scotland's Queenslie headquarters, a calibrated digital twin identified improvements within 12 weeks, delivering a 39% reduction in gas consumption and £25,000 to £30,600 in annual savings. At the University of Liverpool, IES verified a 23% energy reduction and £25,000 saved in eight months.
Orca AI
Orca AI applies computer vision, thermal imaging and fleet analytics to ship navigation, on the argument that safer navigation is itself an efficiency measure: reactive avoidance manoeuvres, speed variability and route deviations all increase engine load and fuel burn. The platform gives crews earlier warning of risk and supports voyage planning, drawing on over 120 million nautical miles of navigational data across more than 1,500 vessels booked. Customers typically achieve fuel savings of 1 to 3%. At TMS Cardiff Gas, close-encounter events fell 31% per 1,000 nautical miles, with average minimum passing distance up 21%.
TATA Consultancy Service (TCS)
TCS runs a Sustainability Services Unit of more than 3,000 specialists spanning strategy, climate and ESG, energy transition, circular economy, data science and digital architecture, operating on a hub-and-spoke model in which a central team holds governance, frameworks and intellectual property while industry and geographic teams handle delivery.
Zevero
Zevero positions carbon accounting as continuous infrastructure rather than an annual project rebuilt each year, combining automation with in-house climate specialists to keep emissions data current as a business changes and usable in procurement, finance and product decisions. The platform now manages over one million tonnes of CO2e across clients in London, Singapore and Tokyo. St Austell Brewery moved from estimates to site-specific activity data, reporting a 28.5% year-on-year emissions reduction and a 20% improvement in data quality. Product-level data enabled the beer brand JUBEL to switch its entire malt supply to regeneratively farmed barley.