Across the Middle East, nation states are facing the growing financial burden of supporting rapidly growing domestic energy consumption against a backdrop of heavily subsidised supply. The Authority for Electricity Regulation (AER) Oman is addressing the nationally important issue of energy efficiency, and in particular the efficiency of electricity consumption in residential premises. Reducing energy use in Oman’s domestic sector has the potential to reduce the cost of energy subsidies and the cost of constructing the infrastructure required to meet growing peak demand. Improving the efficiency of the residential building stock may also deliver improved living conditions for the Omani public through more comfortable living conditions and reduced energy costs.
In recognition of this challenge, AER have partnered with University College London to carry out a 9 month scoping study on domestic energy use in Oman to investigate how a national scale study might be conducted and demonstrate at small scale, the processes, expertise and data required. The data gathering and analysis carried out during this study were aimed both at providing dataset for subsequent exploratory analysis and a means of piloting a data gathering approach to inform future studies. This included both a survey to gather data on the characteristics of the home and its occupants in addition to a home monitoring study implemented via a web-connected monitoring system installed in a sub-sample of homes chosen from the eligible population with the aim of addressing the widest possible range of dwelling and household types.
This work has broken new ground in terms of understanding energy use in Omani homes and laying the foundations for future work.
PI:Tadj Oreszczyn
RR: Rokia Raslan
R: Trevor Sweetnam
UCL has lead the analysis of the survey information to provide cultural and behavioural insights, and appliance and consumption data collected by passivsystems’ remote monitoring of Omani homes. Based on this work an overview research report was produced for the key stakeholders . In addition, UCL developed an initial housing stock model as a framework to integrate data and test the effectiveness of a number of simple energy saving interventions in order to demonstrate the value of an evidence based approach to policy evaluation.
The outputs from this research will inform the future direction of energy regulation in Oman, and provide insights into the options open to nations in the region to tackle their growing domestic energy burdens. The Authority for Electricity Regulation, passivsystems and University College London conducted presented the results of a scoping study of residential energy use in Oman, at the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) on 22nd January 2014 in Abu Dhabi. The WFES is the world’s foremost event dedicated to renewable energies, energy efficiency and clean technologies. The event attracts world leaders, international policy makers, industry experts, investors from the public and private sector and media, who gather in Abu Dhabi to discuss practical and sustainable solutions to future energy challenges.