Impact of Home Energy Monitoring and Management Systems (HEMS)

Impact of Home Energy Monitoring and Management Systems (HEMS): Triple-A: Stimulating the Adoption of low-carbon technologies by homeowners through increased Awareness and easy Access D2.1.1. Report on impact of HEMS

Meijer, F.M. (TU Delft OLD Housing Quality and Process Innovation)
Straub, A. (TU Delft OLD Housing Quality and Process Innovation)
Mlecnik, E. (TU Delft Housing Management)

2018-04-30

This report answers the question: How can HEMS be used to influence energy-saving behaviour of homeowners? Lessons regarding the feedback from HEMS to influence energy-saving behaviour have been explored and specifications of HEMS to influence energy saving by households are given.
Generally, the implementation of the Triple-A HEMS should appeal to (1) end-users (households) and (2) local authorities. Triple-A partners will provide HEMS to households to encourage them to change their energy behaviour and to trigger interest in the adoption of low carbon technologies. Another goal is to apply HEMS in demonstration exemplars (WP 4) to monitor the energy consumption of households and analyse consumption data before and after applying low carbon technologies.
HEMS with real time feedback have a good potential to influence the energy use and subsequent savings of households. In order to realise a structural change of the energy use behaviour it also must become customary for households to use the feedback system. The need of forming an energy saving habit also sets demands on the functionality and design of the feedback system. It must meet the preferences, capabilities and interest of a heterogonous group of homeowners or should be designed for specific customer segments. Direct feedback instruments primarily influence low-cost-quick-win measures: simple changes in behaviour that require little or no effort or investments. These behavioural changes however can potentially lead to substantial immediate savings.
The rollout of smart meters and HEMS differs strongly between the EU countries and the Triple-A countries. Energy providers can play an important role in the rollout of HEMS. The use of smart meters and HEMS and providing easy access of HEMS to homeowners could be one of the instruments of local energy saving programs and community-based reinforcement strategies of local authorities. A neighbourhood approach aims to enable more positive outcomes for energy savings and uptake of renovation measures, by using peer-to-peer communication, personal advice, trialling in demo houses and demonstration in pop-up centres and on local authority websites.
To monitor actual CO2 savings by local authorities within the demonstration areas, baseline requirements for HEMS deal with recording (or accessing data related to) annual energy use gas and/or electricity within the properties for a period of 12 months before and after installation. Next to baseline requirements local authorities can choose discretionary functions and requirements of HEMS, including e.g. measuring grid energy monitoring and comfort performance.
HEMS will also be used to give real-time feedback of the energy use to homeowners helping them to manage their energy consumption. For this purpose recommendations are:
• HEMS should be easy to use and accessible, and fit for purpose.
• Feedback should be real-time, frequent feedback enables the user to link behaviour to consequences.
• The specifications of the HEMS should match with the household characteristics and the willingness to use HEMS. A distinction between user groups is advisable: some users explicitly have more interest in more functionalities (and thus a more complex HEMS, others want a more intuitive user interface.
• Whether adoption of HEMS leads to the adoption of renovation measures is not (yet) known.
• HEMS should appeal to certain conditions of the homeowner (segments) or to solving issues within the home.
Overall recommendations for choosing HEMS include:
• The HEMS should be cost-effective.
• The installation of the HEMS should be easy (preferentially without electricity connection).
• The intrusion time for installing in the home should be minimized.
• A preference is given for HEMS that local authorities can experiment with free-of-charge to avoid de minimis statements.
• HEMS choice by local authorities will be influenced by the need to follow up KPI’s for energy saving, and thus by the compatibility with their own energy management system for analysing building stocks.

Home energy management systems
Energy Monitoring System
renovation
Local authorities
energy saving

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Project No. 2S02-029

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© 2018 F.M. Meijer, A. Straub, E. Mlecnik