If all goes well, the technology will be integrated into a device called the Smart Hub, which will be able to track electricity, gas and water use for an entire household by plugging it into the meters already installed in a property. It will be manufactured by Navetas Energy Management, a co-investor of the ISE technology.
Trials so far have shown the software can identify which appliances are consuming more than 85 percent of all the energy used in the home.
“But if you plug something very small such as a phone charger in, it may say there’s something drawing energy but I don’t have enough information to tell you what it is,” Donaldson said.
OPTION
It is a promising start. Navetas hopes that, once trials are completed next year, one of the major electricity suppliers might option the technology for its customers. They have also come up with a technical solution for the UK smart gas metering market.
Friends of the Earth’s head of UK climate, Ed Matthew, welcomed the Oxford team’s development.
“But the key responsibility for tackling household emissions lies with government — carbon emissions and energy bills could be cut by two-thirds by a massive national program to super insulate all our homes street by street,” he said.
Sellwood adds that household energy consumption is ripe for change.
“The lack of transparency surrounding energy usage is one of the biggest problems holding back the UK’s fight against climate change. Without the uptake of smart metering, this situation in not going to change any time soon,” he said.
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