The next wave of Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL) participant recruitment begins on 14th January 2020, with invitation letters going out across England, Scotland and Wales. Our overall aim is to recruit a representative panel of 8-10,000 GB households with DCC-enrolled electricity and/or gas meters.

If you have received an invitation letter from us and would like to take part, please visit the SERL participant portal and follow the instructions from your letter. Participation in SERL is currently by invitation only.

SERL currently has almost 5,000 participating UK households following previous waves of recruitment in August/September 2020 and August/September 2019. We are anticipating that this latest recruitment wave will bring in 3-5,000 new participant households and see us reach our overall target.

Since our last recruitment waves in autumn 2020 the SERL data has been made available to researchers via the UKDS Secure Lab, and we have a number of research projects already underway using the data.

Simon Elam (SERL Director) said: “We are now seeing several years of groundwork on the technical, governance and participant recruitment strands of the SERL project come to fruition. We are already seeing the first research projects begin work on SERL and we will be focussed on further expanding the portfolio of energy research projects in the public interest in 2021. Hitting our target of 8-10,000 GB households is a key deliverable to the success of the project and will increase the power and significance of the research.”

The ultimate goal of SERL is to enable research that will make the UK’s energy more efficient, sustainable and affordable.

 

More on SERL: https://serl.ac.uk/about-serl/

Participant portal: https://serl.org.uk/

More information for participants: https://serl.ac.uk/participants/