What data is available?
The SERL research environment allows accredited UK academic researchers access to pseudo-anonymised data via a Secure Lab environment.
- daily and half-hourly energy (electricity and gas) consumption data
- additional smart meter technical data
- contextual data
- a short SERL survey completed by participant households providing information about the household and the building
- Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
- weather data
- tariff data – see documentation for more detail
SERL has recruited 13,300 GB households to form the core Observatory panel (with the above data) over three waves:
- Wave 1, (Pilot phase) August to October 2019: recruited 1,700 households
- Wave 2, August to October 2020: recruited 3,100 households
- Wave 3, January to March 2021: recruited 8,500 households
You can learn more about the type of data available by viewing the SERL Stats report and accompanying datasets on our reports page.
Introductory videos
SERL – a new energy data resource (Webinar 12/05/21). (PDF version)
Accessing SERL Data (UKDS webinar 21/01/21). Full video on UKDS site.
Accessing the SERL Observatory data
Access to Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL) Observatory data is provided via a secure lab environment and is restricted to accredited researchers working on approved projects. This aligns with the 5 Safes protocols used by the UK Data Service (UKDS) for all access to any controlled data via a secure lab. Currently, SERL only provides controlled datasets via a secure lab environment.
The process to obtain access to controlled data is appropriately rigorous so it is strongly recommended that researchers read the detailed documentation associated with the SERL catalogue record (SN 8666) in the UKDS data catalogue to ensure that SERL data is appropriate for your research project before any other steps.
Summary of steps and rough timelines:
- Accredited Researcher status – Safe Researcher training and exam – 1 month
- University Ethics approval – this varies by institution but allow at least 3-4 weeks
- Project application – UKDS triage and SERL Data Governance Board review – 4-6 weeks
Therefore, if starting from scratch, it is recommended that researchers allow at least 3 months for completion of the above processes before access to the data is actually required.
One page application overview – with estimated applicant time and processing time needed for each step.
For full details and to begin an application visit the UKDS website
SERL Laboratory function
In addition to the Observatory, SERL supports a ‘Laboratory’ function whereby third-party researchers may collaborate with SERL to recruit their own participants and use SERL to gain access to smart meter data and other linked contextual data for these participants. Use of the Laboratory requires additional support from SERL and comes with additional requirements of third-party researchers.
More information on using the laboratory function is available here: SERL laboratory – user summary (PDF)
Other users
Direct access to granular data via SERL is only available to accredited researchers (where accredited researchers are not based at UK HEI institutions they will need to collaborate with colleagues from a UK HEI institution to act as lead applicant on the project). Other interested parties may be able to obtain valuable insights or aggregated results by collaborating with a UK university on a relevant research project (which will need to go through the approval process described above). For more information please contact [email protected]
Updates
If you would like to receive occasional updates on SERL’s work via our mailing list, please email your name to [email protected] (your name and email address will only be used to email you updates about SERL portal and you can ask to be removed from the list at any time).
For further information please see FAQs below. You can also contact [email protected] or fill in the below contact form if you would like an initial discussion before applying to access the data.
Contact form
FAQS for researchers
The SERL dataset includes ‘Region in GB’, ‘Lower Super Output Area in GB (LSOA)’ and ‘Grid cell for linking to climate data’. For more detail see ‘SERL Participant Summary Documentation’ in the Smart Meter data: Technical Documentation Please contact [email protected] if you require any further information.
See the relevant UK Data Service page for detailed technical documentation of SERL smart meter and contextual data.
Normally SERL granular data will only be accessible to accredited UK researchers. Accredited researchers who are not affiliated to a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) will need to have a UK HEI partner to act as project lead on their application.
PhD students can access the data if their supervisor is included on the application and goes through the project approval process with the student as above. Masters and undergraduate students will not be able to access the granular data.
Other parties such as policymakers, overseas academics or private sector organisations wishing to use the SERL portal would need to do so in partnership with accredited UK researchers. SERL hopes to develop a mechanism to put academic and non-academic parties interested in researching similar topics in touch with each other to develop projects. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to enquire further about this possibility.
The laboratory function of the researcher portal will allow you to upload your own project data to SERL to compare with the SERL core data – subject to adherence to rigorous security and data governance procedures. See more on Data Governance
More detailed information is available in the Key Documents section. Please contact [email protected] if you require any further information on researcher use of SERL.
Publications using SERL data will be posted on this site under the Key Documents section as they appear.
SERL recruits households randomly selected from a list of addresses with a DCC-enrolled smart meter in England, Scotland and Wales. These households are sent a letter (and reminders) by post inviting them to participate by consenting to data collection and (optionally) completing a survey. More details about participant recruitment can be found in the Participants section and in the Key Documents.
SERL asked all participants to complete an optional contextual survey about their household and dwelling when they signed up. We also link relevant external datasets such as weather and Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data to smart meter and SERL survey data.
SERL recruited 13,000 GB households from 2019-2021. The data for the full sample was first made available in the 3rd Edition of the SERL dataset, released in August 2021. All recruited homes have DCC-enrolled smart meters (electricity and/or gas).
Applications to SERL will be assessed by the SERL Data Governance Board. A prerequisite of applications to use SERL data is that the project has been approved by the applicants’ institutional ethics committee.