SERL team members Dr Ellen Webborn and Professor Tadj Oreszczyn have published a comment piece in the prestigious journal Nature Energy.
The piece, entitled ‘Champion the energy data revolution‘ explores the potential and challenges of accessing unprecedented amounts of energy consumption data through smart technology. Large volumes of half-hourly smart meter data concentrated across specific geographical areas can help researchers build a much more detailed picture of how energy demand can be reduced, thus helping to address climate change as well as energy affordability and supply issues. Contextual datasets giving more information about the buildings themselves and their occupants’ energy use can further improve our understanding of how we use energy.
However, there are legitimate concerns from consumers around the use of their data in this rapidly developing field and researchers must navigate a landscape where GDPR and data privacy issues loom large.
The piece outlines the endeavours by organisations such as the Smart Energy Public Interest Advisory Group, the Energy Data Taskforce and the IEA Annex 70 Building Energy Epidemiology – as well as the Smart Energy Research Lab itself – to establish the need for and value of using smart meter data in energy research.
Read the Nature Energy Comment article