James O'TooleJames O’Toole introduces the Smart Energy Research Lab – and its benefit to researchers.
The energy landscape is changing fast. Reducing CO2 emissions is an ever more pressing agenda item for policy makers and technology is surging forward with the adoption of electric greece rcs data vehicles, solar panels and smart-home internet-enabled devices. The smart meter rollout continues apace with over 11 million gas and electric meters connected to the national secure network to date.
Domestic smart meter data has the potential to revolutionise research into home energy use by offering much more finely grained data than was previously possible. Smart meters can provide half-hourly consumption data which can be updated on a daily basis. Data from traditional meters is often only available for researchers as aggregated annual totals and the data is only accessible to researchers 1-2 years after the time when the energy was actually used.
However, smart meter data belongs to the consumer, and householders are understandably cautious of how their data is being used. So any researchers working with smart meter data must demonstrate that they are adhering to the most rigorous standards of data privacy and protection laid out in the Smart Energy Code (SEC) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2018).