IDEAL: Intelligent Domestic Energy Advice Loop

通过改变居住者的行为来减少现有住宅的能源需求对于实现英国的碳减排目标至关重要。丹麦直接占英国能源消耗和相应碳排放的32%。虽然有许多针对新建住宅的减排努力，但关注现有住宅至关重要：到2050年，英国80%的住宅已经建成。注意行为变化很重要-DECC估计，行为差异占需求变化的60%。与供热相关的需求是关键-- 80%的国内能源需求用于供暖。使用跨学科的概念框架，我们的计算机科学家，建筑工程师和社会学家团队将共同努力，探索能源技术和家庭能源行为的相互作用。这是第一次能够在大量家庭中详细分析家庭能源需求，并在多年期间评估行为反馈的影响。计划于2020年完成的智能电表的推出旨在鼓励住户减少能源需求。这些仪表和相关联的监视器为住户创建反馈回路，其中来自仪表的能量消耗信息在监视器上被提供给住户，希望这将使他或她改变行为以减少所使用的能量的量，或花费在能量上的钱的量，或相关联的碳排放。该项目的主要目标是建立一个增强的反馈回路，不仅向住户提供关于其能源消耗的信息，而且还提供关于他们正在使用能源的活动的信息，以及每项活动使用多少能源的信息，以及关于他们可以采取哪些措施来减少能源支出和使用的建议。我们希望能够告诉户主这样的事情：“上周你花了10英镑买热水洗澡”，或者“昨天你花了4英镑给公寓供暖，如果你在晚上关掉暖气，你可能只花了3英镑--这样做你一年可以节省250英镑左右。。我们将在一项为期三年的研究中，通过涉及数百个家庭，构建这个反馈回路，并与标准智能电表类型的反馈相比，评估其有效性。我们将涉及各种类型的家庭，包括单身人士，多成人住宅和家庭，并期望有不同收入阶层的参与者。反馈回路将使用住宅中的小型不显眼的无线传感器来记录数据，并通过互联网将其传输到大型安全数据库;以及平板电脑，将信息反馈给住户。这些数据将通过软件进行处理，告诉居住者他们在哪些与能源相关的活动上花费了多少能源、碳和金钱-例如在过去的一天、一周、一个月和一年。这个反馈循环将持续数年（最多3年），并将为参与者提供丰富的信息，他们可以使用这些信息来减少他们的能源支出。我们将比较这种反馈与智能电表提供的反馈的有效性，智能电表没有将能源使用分解为重要的能源使用行为（特别是天然气使用）。在研究结束时，我们会询问参与者，我们是否可以在未来的研究中使用我们收集的数据，并删除所有个人信息。那些同意的人将为一个数据库做出贡献，这对我们和其他人未来的研究工作将是无价的。如果我们能够证明这个循环在帮助人们减少能源需求方面是有效的，那么我们预计能源供应商和其他公司将开始将其作为一项服务提供给家庭，帮助他们降低能源成本。这将有助于减少能源贫困以及实现英国2050年碳排放目标的挑战。

Reducing energy demand from existing dwellings through occupant behaviour change is crucial for meeting UK carbon emission reduction targets. Dwellings account directly for 32% of UK energy consumption, and corresponding carbon emissions. While there are many reduction efforts aimed at new-build, a focus on existing dwellings is essential: 80% of the dwellings that will be in place in the UK in 2050 are already built. Attention to behaviour change is important - behavioural differences are estimated by DECC to account for 60% of the variance in demand. Demand related to heat is key - 80% of domestic energy demand is for heating. Using an interdisciplinary conceptual framework, our team of computer scientists, building engineers and sociologists will work together to explore the interaction of energy technologies and householder energy behaviours. For the first time household energy demand will be able to be analysed in great detail across a large number of homes and the effect of behavioural feedback evaluated over a multi-year period. The Smart Meter rollout planned to be complete by 2020 is intended to encourage householders to reduce their energy demand. These meters and the associated monitors create a feedback loop to householders in which energy-consumption information from the meters is provided to the householder on the monitor in the hope that this will cause him or her to change behaviours to reduce the amount of energy used, or the amount of money spent on energy, or the associated carbon emissions. This project's main goal is to construct an enhanced feedback loop which provides information to householders not just on their energy consumption, but also on what activities they are using energy, how much for each one, together with suggestions for what they might do to reduce their energy expenditure and use. We would hope to be able to tell the householder things like: "Last week you spent £10 on hot water for showers", or "Yesterday you spent £4 on heating your flat, if you turned off the heating at night you would probably have only spent £3 - you could save around £250 a year by doing this".We will construct this feedback loop and evaluate its effectiveness compared to standard Smart Meter type feedback by involving hundreds of households in a study over a three year period. We will involve a variety of types of households including single people, multi-adult dwellings, and families, and expect to have participants across income brackets.The feedback loop will use small unobtrusive wireless sensors in the dwellings to record data and transmit it over the internet to a large secure database; and a tablet PC to provide information back to householders. The data will be processed by software to tell the occupants how much energy, carbon and money they are spending on which energy-related activities - for example over the last day, week, month, and year.This feedback loop will run for several years (up to 3) and will provide the participants with a wealth of information that they can use to reduce their energy expenditure. We will compare how effective this feedback is with that provided by Smart Meters, that does not break down energy use into the important energy-using behaviours (particularly for gas use). At the end of the study we will ask participants if we can use the data we have gathered, with all personal information removed, in future studies. Those that agree will be contributing to a database that will be invaluable for future research efforts by us and others.If we can show that this loop is effective in helping people to reduce their energy demand, then we expect that energy suppliers and other companies will start to offer it as a service to households to help them keep their energy costs down. This will contribute to reducing energy poverty as well as the challenge of meeting UK 2050 carbon emission targets.