The Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL) lifts off in August as it invites 18,000 households across the UK to share gas and electricity data from their smart meters.
The UK Data Archive is the technical and infrastructure lead in a consortium of seven UK universities* and the Energy Saving Trust for the five year project running from 2017 to 2022. SERL will use real-time household energy consumption data from smart meters to fuel a new wave of innovative energy research. The raw meter readings will be enriched with linked contextual data such as household survey responses, energy performance certificates and climate data to enable research which aims to help UK energy use become more efficient, sustainable and affordable. It is the first manifestation of a new cross-disciplinary strategy at the UK Data Archive where collective intelligence across multiple disciplines should lead to deeper policy insights.
The five-year project is funded by UK Research and Innovation. The project consortium has been working since August 2017 to develop the complex technical and data governance structures needed to make sure energy consumption data is gathered from consenting households.
A technical innovation team led by Darren Bell at the UK Data Archive is developing an end-to-end secure platform for researchers, allowing them controlled access to high-resolution energy data and derived secondary data products. The project will use big data technology and a petabyte-scale infrastructure originally developed through the ESRC’s Big Data Network Support investment in the UK Data Service and augmented by EPSRC’s multi-million pound investment in SERL. Participant consents and data will be securely and automatically ingested, stored and disseminated at the UK Data Archive. A data governance board will assess all project applications to make sure their use of data complies with SERL’s rigorous data governance and ethical protocols, in accordance with the relevant legislation, including GDPR and the Smart Energy Code.
Matthew Woollard, Director of the UK Data Service and UK Data Archive, said: “This is a revolutionary project for energy research. The portal we’re designing will have the potential to make a positive impact on lasting research and help solve the UK’s energy challenges.”
The consortium has also been working with Ipsos MORI to develop a pilot phase of participant recruitment, which is running from August to October 2019. Following the pilot phase, another wave of participant recruitment will follow in early 2020. SERL’s ultimate target is to recruit up to 50,000 households for the core observatory.
Jon Johnson, Co-Investigator of SERL at the UK Data Archive, said: “This project has exemplified true technical innovation, building upon the best open source software available, alongside open metadata standards allowing us to leverage the most out of the current generation of big data technology.”
Tadj Oreszczyn, Professor of Energy and Environment at University College London and Principal Investigator of SERL, said: “It’s a very exciting time for the project as we begin to recruit British households and approach the ‘go-live’ date of the research portal.”
Contact details: Website: www.serl.ac.uk | Email: info@serl.ac.uk
* University of Essex (UK Data Archive), University College London, Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, Leeds Beckett University, Loughborough University, University of Southampton.