Visualising real-time in-home energy savings opportunities

Smart meters and in-home displays (IHD) are being rolled out across all GB homes (>27 million) by 2020. IHDs

(which display energy consumption and cost in real-time) currently offer limited opportunities to put household

energy consumption in context, and as such, fail to deliver the full potential for customer engagement,

behavioural change and energy savings that these devices could achieve by leveraging proven consumer

drivers. In this project, we will assess the technical feasibility of a new type of IHD which provides real-time

comparative consumption, i.e. how real-time consumption compares to the historical consumption of similar

households (at that specific time of day and season) with the ability to take into account household occupancy,

demographics, building characteristics and appliance ownership. Non real-time comparative consumption

feedback has been shown in the US to offer an additional 2-3% energy saving per household. This innovative

project will be the first time this is applied in a real-time context with the potential to save GB households as

much as £330 million annually on their electricity bills.