Digital Environment Home Energy Management System (DEHEMS)
FUNDER
EU
VALUE
Approx £3.5m
COLLABORATORS
Manchester City Council, United Kingdom
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Clicks and Links Ltd, United Kingdom
Hildebrand Technology Ltd, United Kingdom
Bristol City Council, United Kingdom
Energy Agency of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
University of Rousse “Angel Kanchev”, Bulgaria
Birmingham City Council, United Kingdom
The Centre, Belgium
University of Salford, United Kingdom
Obshtina Ivanovo Municipality, Bulgaria
Institute e-Austria Timisoara, Romania
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
DEHEMS aims to help Europe to achieve its carbon reduction targets by supporting households in reducing their energy usage through better analysis and management of their energy consumption.
By improving the current monitoring approach to levels of energy being used by households, the aspiration is to reduce CO2 emissions across Europe. The DEHEMS Dashboard enables users to view their home energy consumption, alongside a community average in real-time, providing a unique insight into how exactly the energy is being used.
The project is also working to address issues relating to appliance performance, gas usage and advice on energy efficiency actions.
RESEARCH IMPACT
The project improved existing household energy monitoring, tackling the issues of global warming and CO2 emission reduction in the domestic sector. The research directly contributed to the development of a product called EnergyHive, subsequently marketed by Small to Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Hildebrand Ltd, who was the industrial partner in the DEHEMS consortium. The research has delivered the following:
Economic impact
As a result of the research, Hildebrand Ltd has diversified into an entirely new market through the development of the EnergyHive product to monitor energy use and provide advice on how to reduce energy consumption. The simple interface has been designed to make product easy to use and to understand by the consumers but flexible enough to monitor the whole house with up to five heat, motion and other sensors.
Impact on the environment
The results from this work indicated that individual homes reduced their energy consumption as a result of the usage feedback about their energy consumption. The analysis of energy consumption data collected before and after deployment of the prototype system showed an average of 7.89% reduction of daily energy consumption against baseline period when the monitoring device was installed in the home but energy feedback was not accessible to residents. A survey of the residents showed an increased awareness of global warming and energy saving, showing that residents were motivated by both financial and also environmental aspects.
Beneficiaries of the research and the subsequent impact include: a commercial business, domestic energy consumers, UK and international energy companies and local authorities.
