Research with disaggregated electricity end-use data in households: review and recommendations

Changes in electricity systems mean that more detailed information about demand levels for particular energy services in the home are now available to energy researchers. Accordingly, it is useful to determine how these data might be best used by energy researchers. To advance this discussion, 13 studies that use intrusive load‐monitoring techniques to generate, to present, and to make effective use of, disaggregated end‐use electricity data from households are identified. These studies are placed within a broader literature context (including studies using non‐intrusive load‐monitoring techniques), are summarized briefly, and are cross‐compared in order to delineate emerging issues. These issues are as follows: methodological challenges, including monitoring equipment performance and participant recruitment; ways to present the time‐ and space‐specific nature of the end‐use electricity data generated; advances with respect to end‐use electricity models that can be built; appliance‐specific insights; and future priorities for this kind of work, including energy conservation insights, relevant policy recommendations, and priority academic investigations. Finally, reflection upon these 13 studies, as well as the broader energy research agenda, generates a number of priority areas for work going forward: making effective use of additional data; broadening the focus to include electricity production and storage, as well as other energy, carbon, resource, and information flows; placing these data within broader social contexts and wider power system considerations; and encouraging effective use of these data to advance energy system sustainability, at both the household and community levels. WIREs Energy Environ 2015, 4:383–396. doi: 10.1002/wene.151 This article is categorized under: Energy Efficiency > Economics and Policy Energy Infrastructure > Economics and Policy Energy Policy and Planning > Economics and Policy