More than 25% of all energy consumption in the UK takes place in our homes. If we could all better monitor and manage energy use at home, it could help achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions.

But how can individual homeowners pinpoint where they could make savings? The answer is through the use of smart home solutions.

Smart meters enable utility companies to take remote readings, eliminating the need for meter readers to tread the streets. With a direct link to the utility company established, there are other benefits too. These might include:

  • showing a real-time display of home users’ energy consumption, cost and carbon emissions
  • tailoring the display to highlight devices consuming the greatest amount of energy
  • reducing unnecessary consumption by, for example, switching off lights in unoccupied rooms or turning off space heating when the house is empty
  • identifying users susceptible to fuel poverty and working with social services to provide support where needed and hopefully cut deaths from hypothermia in winter.

Similar technology is available to support effective monitoring and management of water, another resource under increasing pressure as demand rises and supply is stable or falling.

It is feasible that this technology could be used to support the energy and carbon emissions targets specified in, for example, the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Source

Building Sustainable Design