Smart Energy Research Group

The unprecedented change in living and working patterns caused by the CV19 lockdowns created an opportunity to research how such major shifts would affect domestic energy use. The Smart Energy Research Lab ran its own CV19 project which surveyed 1000 GB homes on their experience of the lockdowns. The Smart Energy Research Lab dataset (which contains energy data as well as demographic, building and weather data) is being used by numerous projects to gain insights into how working from home affects domestic energy demand.

See SERL publications for research papers and findings.  

The Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL) is a £9m UKRI EPSRC project running from 2023 to 2028 in collaboration with the University of Oxford. EDOL expands on the work of SERL by developing:   

• forensic laboratories of small groups of homes who will take part in home visits and interviews as well as energy monitoring
• laboratories of 100-200 homes to evaluate technologies and energy saving interventions for potential scale-out 
• an observatory of 2,000 GB participating homes with more in-depth home energy monitoring equipment such as temperature sensors​​​​

Enabling UK researchers access to domestic smart meter data protected by GDPR and the Smart Energy Code has entailed the team learning a great deal about smart meter data governance. The team have developed an extensive data governance framework; an application procedure for gaining access to smart meter data via a secure lab; convened an independent Data Governance Board; recruited and managed a cohort of 13,000 households. 

The Smart Energy Research Lab has worked closely with the Department on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to provide energy data to evaluate the impact of energy-saving interventions. We were an integral part of the Smart Energy Savings (SENS) trials and are working on evaluations of the Green Homes Grant scheme’s interventions. The existing SERL dataset can be used a control group for such projects and we also advise on and run participant recruitment for our ‘laboratory’ projects. 

The SERG team are working with the Energy Systems Catapult on the Homes for Net Zero project.

HouseInc is a HORIZON-funded project that will use innovative methodologies to analyse housing inequalities in four European countries. 

The EU faces a housing crisis with a lack of affordable, sustainable, and inclusive housing. According to Eurostat data, in  2022, 16.8% of EU citizens lived in overcrowded households, with higher rates in Eastern Europe. Energy poverty is rising, with 9.3% of EU citizens unable to keep their homes adequately warm. The recent surge in energy and fuel prices has worsened this situation. Housing costs are also a burden with 10.8% of the EU population spending over 40% of their income on housing. 

HouseInc aims to address these issues by contributing to policies for affordable, inclusive, and sustainable housing for marginalized groups. 

Smart meter data can help us better understand and alleviate the challenge of fuel poverty. Identifying patterns in energy use that suggest households are fuel poor could lead to tailored energy efficiency advice, financial support, or specific tariffs.   

UCL's Smart Energy Research Lab works with partners in academia, government and industry on a number of projects using cutting edge techniques such as Artificial Intelligence to help identify fuel poverty, evaluate interventions and gather data to tackle this major societal challenge. 

See SERL publications for research papers and findings.  

This three-year project, funded by the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group), runs until December 2026 with studies in South Africa, Colombia, and Indonesia. It aims to evaluate EDGE-certified buildings in low and middle-income countries by comparing: 

• EDGE-predicted versus actual energy savings 
• Energy performance of EDGE-certified versus conventional buildings 

The project seeks to improve EDGE model predictions in EDGE residential buildings and boost actual savings by assessing how closely EDGE-predicted energy and water demand matches actual usage, and identifying key areas where differences are substantial, e.g. season, climate, building types, types of EDGE solutions, and the possible reasons for these. 

The Smart Energy Research Lab plans to produce a series of publicly available reports, statistical analyses and data tables that enable maximum value to the research community for the unique dataset of energy, demographic, building, weather and EPC data that has been assembled with our funding. The first SERL stats report was published in April 2022 and is expected to be produced annually along with background data tables. The report shows how residential energy use in GB varies over time.

See SERL publications for research papers and findings.  

The group’s work is underpinned by the Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL) which provides a technical and data governance infrastructure that allows accredited UK researchers to access to high-quality, high-resolution gas and electricity data for ~13,000 GB households via smart meters. This data is linked to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), weather, demographic and building information, creating a detailed resource for understanding domestic energy use and informing sustainable energy policy. 

The most accessible outputs from SERL are the Statistical Reports, with SERL Stats Report Vol I  downloaded over 4016 times across 72 countries. The SERL Statistical Dataset has been accessed over 200 times from over 65 organisations including the Bank of England, the Economist and the Prime Minister’s Office. SERL data has supported 34 research projects and contributed to government initiatives like the Smart Energy Savings Trials and Green Homes Grant evaluations. 

Smart meter data could inform health interventions such as prescribing boiler upgrades to people living in cold or damp homes, which might be cheaper and more effective than medical alternatives. It could also allow vulnerable people to stay independent if carers are enabled to monitor their energy use to check their routine is normal. Smart Energy Research Lab data is contributing to a number of projects and initiatives looking at the link between domestic energy use and health.