What is SERL Plus?

SERL Plus is a new extension to the SERL project that will help us take the research even further. We will select 2,000 households from the main SERL sample to take part in SERL Plus. Participation is by invitation, based on suitability of the available homes in SERL for SERL Plus. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Joining SERL Plus

SERL Plus participants will receive a new in-home sensor (the SERL Plus+ MiniMeter), which collects and sends us your smart meter data at a higher resolution, as well as the temperature and humidity of where it is located. Minimal set-up is required. Most households will simply need to connect the device to a power socket and make sure it stays plugged in during the study. SERL Plus will run until December 2027 in the first instance.

Participation in SERL Plus is completely optional. Non SERL Plus participants will remain part of the SERL project under the existing terms of consent. Participants can withdraw from SERL at any time by contacting [email protected] 

The SERL project has already helped us to gain a better understanding of energy usage in the UK to inform how the UK can become more energy efficient, switch away from using fossil fuels to protect the environment, and reduce future household energy bills. SERL Plus will allow us to develop this work further by gathering more contextual data from households. Temperature and humidity data will allow us to understand how comfortable and healthy peoples’ homes are and how this relates to energy use. The higher resolution smart meter data will help us understand fine-grained patterns of electricity demand. This will be an extremely valuable extra source of data that will allow us to expand our domestic energy research by better understanding detailed patterns of energy use and how people are able to heat and cool their home. 

Invited SERL participants are eligible to take part in SERL Plus. This invitation is for your household only and should not be passed to anyone else. You must be aged 18 or over and regularly living at this address to take part. 

After you have signed up to the project, we will post you a device called a SERL Plus+ MiniMeter. Please connect this to a power socket in a convenient location, within 20 metres of your smart meter, and ensure it remains connected for the duration of the study. 

Once it is connected and we’re receiving your data, we’ll send you an email to confirm this and to ask you to tell us where you have located the sensor in your home, to help us understand the data. 

In the unlikely event of data transfer problems, we may contact you to resolve them by email or over the phone. We won’t need to visit your address at any stage. and you won’t need to send back the devices at the end of the study – they will be yours to keep, or dispose of as electronic waste. 

We are also planning to send two more questionnaires, one in 2026 and the other in 2027, which should each take about 15 minutes to complete. We are looking for participants who are willing to stay in SERL Plus until at least December 2027. 

The SERL Plus MiniMeter collects your smart meter data, and temperature and humidity data, up to every 10 seconds. The data is encrypted before it is transferred to our secure server using its own mobile connection. If the mobile signal in your area is not sufficient, we may ask to use your WiFi. In that case we will help you with instructions for the app to connect the MiniMeter to your home WiFi. 

As a token of our gratitude for your time and willingness to take part, SERL Plus Participants would be sent a £20 Love2shop voucher after the setup process is complete. This can be redeemed at a range of online or high street shops. You will receive a further £10 per year, in 2026 and 2027, for your continued participation in the project, totalling £40 over the course of the study. 

This research is important to inform effective government policies and make energy consumption more secure, sustainable and affordable. You may benefit indirectly from this in the future. The research intends to deliver benefits to society and future generations.   

 

The MiniMeter is commercially available and safety certified (“CE marked”). It will require the use of one of your plug sockets throughout the study, although there is some flexibility about where this would be. The MiniMeter should be placed so that it does not pose a trip hazard. If you cannot find a good location, you’ll be able to contact our helpful support team for advice, using the contact details above. The MiniMeter uses electricity that costs approximately £3 per year (at current typical market prices). The Love2shop vouchers are in part intended to compensate you for that cost. 

This project is led by University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford. The work is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), grant number EP/X00967X/1, as part of the Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL) programme. 

 

A few years ago your household consented to participate in the Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL). Now we are writing to ask selected participants to take part in this further research so that SERL can contribute to energy research more effectively. We are aiming to recruit 2,000 of the 13,000 households that joined the SERL study.  

The new devices would collect and securely send us the following data: 

  • Data on your electricity consumption, up to a resolution of 10 seconds. 
  • The temperature and humidity in your home a few times per hour, or whenever they change significantly, in the location where the CAD is placed. 

We will also collect: 

  • Your email and phone details (for future communications about the project). 
  • Your responses to future SERL Plus surveys. 

We will link the data we collect from you for SERL Plus with the data you gave us permission to use for research when you signed up to SERL, including your previous survey responses, smart meter data and your home’s Energy Performance Certificate. Full details about the SERL project and the data we hold are available here.

It is your decision whether or not to participate in SERL Plus. In either case, your participation in the original SERL project will continue unaffected. You can withdraw your consent to SERL Plus (if you decide to join), or SERL as a whole, at any time without giving a reason. Contact details are provided above.

Your participation in the project, and all data we collect during the project, will be kept strictly confidential. We commit to safeguarding your privacy. Confidentiality will be respected subject to legal constraints and professional guidelines.  

All data will be managed in accordance with UK data protection regulations and only used for scientific research in the public interest. The existing data we hold and collect from your participation in SERL, and data collected as part of SERL Plus, will be processed on our behalf by accredited third parties, and stored securely by UCL and the University of Oxford. The data will be made accessible through a secure environment only to accredited researchers working on approved research projects. We will contact you once per year to remind you what data we are collecting and remind you how you can withdraw from the project. 

No, the data accessed for this study will not be sold and will only ever be used to conduct scientific research in the public interest.  

We publish the results of our research, including via our website, academic books, journals, and at conferences. Individuals and households will not be identified in any publication, and no information will be included that is personal to you or could be traced back to you.   

Information on your rights as a participant and how UCL uses participant information are available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/legal-services/privacy/ucl-general-research-participant-privacy-notice   


University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford are the Data Controllers for this project. The UCL Data Protection Officer provides oversight of UCL activities involving the processing of personal data. If you are concerned about how your personal data is being processed, or if you would like to contact us about your rights, please contact UCL in the first instance at [email protected]. The categories of personal data used will include: name, address, email address, phone number, smart meter data, indoor temperature and humidity data, device IDs (e.g., smart meter ID, sensor/CAD ID etc.), Meter Point Address Number (MPAN), survey responses, and energy performance certificate and building survey data. The lawful basis used to process this data is performance of a task in the public interest. Your personal data will be processed as long as required for the research project. We will keep your data secure, store your contact details separately from data used for research, and minimise the processing of personal data wherever possible, in accordance with GDPR regulations. Hildebrand is a data processor that securely collects and manages data from smart meters and CADs used by this project on behalf of the data controllers. Chameleon Technologies are responsible for linking your SERL Plus MiniMeter with your smart meter and collecting MiniMeter data on behalf of the data controllers.

If you wish to raise a concern or make a complaint you should inform us directly using the contact details provided below. If you feel that your complaint has not been handled to your satisfaction you can contact the Chair of the UCL Research Ethics Committee – [email protected] . If you remain unsatisfied, you have the right to lodge a formal complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Full details may be accessed on the complaints section of the ICO’s website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/   

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.serl.ac.uk

Address: Smart Energy Research Lab, 14 Upper Woburn Place, University College London, London WC1H 0NN