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Over the last 30 years or so, carbon emissions from domestic energy usage in the UK have dropped by nearly a third due to ongoing reductions in demand.
This fall is due to various factors: improvements in energy efficiency, not least due to improved home insulation and more efficient boilers; the growth of renewable energy; a drop in coal usage; the impact of warmer weather, and last but not least, rising prices.
This means household energy use, at 22% of the total, no longer accounts for the largest share of the country’s carbon emissions. That dubious accolade now goes to transport, at 30%. Included here are emissions from road vehicles, domestic aviation, civil and military shipping, fishing vessels, and railways.
But this does not mean that the subject of domestic energy usage can simply be forgotten about. In fact, says James O’Toole, Manager of University College London’s (UCL) Smart Energy Research Group (SERG):
There’s still a lot to be done. For example, moving away from gas towards more efficient electric technology, such as heat pumps, improving insulation, and retrofitting in the UK’s ageing domestic buildings. Improving domestic energy use can also make energy cheaper and more reliable for households.
Understanding the drivers of energy consumption
Therefore, in a bid to better understand the drivers of energy consumption, UCL got together with the Universities of Oxford and Exeter in 2023 to create the Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL) research project. Funded by the UK Research and Innovation national funding agency for science and research, EDOL built on the work of the Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL), which it absorbed.
SERL had been collecting gas and electric smart meter data from more than 11,500 homes as part of its Observatory project since 2019, using the UK’s DDC national smart meter communications network. Prior to this time, research had relied mainly on annual estimates that only became available a year after the energy had been consumed.
EDOL supplements SERL’s work by gathering additional near-live, indoor temperature and humidity readings, plus 10-second smart meter electricity data. This information is collected from a subset of 2,000 SERL Observatory participants. They were selected for providing the best quality data and for making up a representative sample of UK households based on different demographics and geographies.
The EDOL project’s goal is to model domestic energy demand and build a more accurate and detailed picture of how, when and why households use their energy than had been feasible in the past. The information also makes it possible to understand how domestic consumption is affecting UK-wide energy demand and associated carbon emission generation.
This, in turn, makes it easier to devise evidence-based solutions that should help the UK hit its net zero goals. O’Toole explains:
Our overarching aim is to contribute to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to ensure climate change is mitigated for our health and wellbeing and that of future generations. We use our expertise to gather and interpret real-world evidence that helps policymakers, and others in the energy sector, understand how best to reduce energy demand and move closer to achieving net zero…In practice we’ve been able to conduct research findings on such areas as COVID-19, the energy cost crisis, and Energy Performance Certificates in a timely fashion that have fed into academic and policymaker thinking on these important issues.
Using off-the-shelf technology
As to how EDOL was able to extend SERL’s work by collecting new readings, this was achieved using Chameleon Technology’s Gateway Connect device. It includes a high-spec temperature and humidity sensor and in-built modem with a custom antenna to send data back to a Control Center for researchers to analyze.
The product’s algorithms identify patterns of energy use to help such researchers track time-of-use trends, understand the effects of home thermal efficiency, and model low-carbon technology usage. Roll-out of the device, which participants in the scheme know as the SERL Plus MiniMeter, began in August last year.
The MiniMeter, which is simply plugged into the wall and activated remotely, communicates with domestic smart meters using the Zigbee wireless communication standard to gather high-resolution electricity data.
But using indoor temperature sensors is “notoriously difficult” due to accuracy issues and “what factors within the home might affect the quality of the data gathered”, O’Toole points out. Other potential hurdles include batteries running out and problems in connecting to WiFi networks. As a result, he says:
We needed something robust and reliable and simple for participants to set up. The Chameleon Gateway Connect offered this ‘plug and play’ facility while collecting temperature and humidity readings, high-resolution electricity smart meter data, and transmitting it to us nearly immediately.
For this sort of scale project, where there are logistics involved in getting devices to study participants, we’ve learned that using an adapted, off-the-shelf, road-tested solution and working with experienced technical partners is a successful route.
Taking research to another level
The upshot of all this, O’Toole says, is that:
We’ve been able to take the research to another level, getting more fine-grained domestic data that we can do a range of research with, which should offer important insights into home energy use when combining smart meter data with internal atmospheric readings… While it’s a little early to provide metrics and findings, the devices are working well, with a high percentage reporting no issues. We’re excited to see the full results of the research in the coming months.
EDOL’s current focus is on finalizing the logistical and technical groundwork, before the research team can turn its attention to analyzing the available data. This will include working with smaller sub-groups of homes to introduce additional sensors in order to explore specific factors in more depth. These factors include adopting energy flexibility, introducing heat pumps, using electric vehicles, and the impact of domestic waste.
As O’Toole concludes:
We hope the results of this will be some worthwhile and interesting insights into domestic energy demand that can inform policy and help the government reach its net zero targets. This will take up the last two years of our project to the end of 2027. In the meantime, we will be looking for opportunities to secure funding to continue developing the research and see what novel ways we can steer the SERL/EDOL project in.