Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL)

UK Data Archive contribution

The UK Data Archive contribution includes:

  • Providing the technical and data ingest infrastructure and interfaces into the national smart meter infrastructure (DCC – Data Communications Company)
  • Building and supporting websites to capture and manage participant consent and researcher project applications
  • Enhancing and extending the infrastructure for secure remote access to smart meter data

Co-Investigator: Darren Bell
Project Officers: Deirdre Lungley, Martin Randall, Jacob Joy, Sakshi Tayal, Myles Offord
Funder: EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Researcher Council)
Dates: October 2017 to 27 August 2022

Partners

Follow this link for information on SERL’s consortium of UK Universities and other industry partners

Technical infrastructure

The UK Data Archive team continue to work on delivering several key elements of the Smart Energy Research Lab, including:

  • streamlining the processes for ingesting smart meter data from participating households into the SERL environment
  • working with UCL on data quality assurance
  • working with UCL to finalise data governance processes for using the SERL data
  • preparing the participant portal for the next wave of SERL recruitment
  • developing the full SERL researcher portal
  • developing interim solutions for working with the SERL data prior to the launch of the portal.

Data Governance Board

The SERL Data Governance Board (DGB) convened for the first time on 16th August 2020. The review process involves a project application being submitted via the UK Data Service which will be assessed by our secure lab team before being submitted to the SERL DGB for final review. For more detail on the process see: https://serl.ac.uk/researchers/

Participant recruitment

SERL Wave 2 recruitment will begin on Thursday 6th August. Partners Ipsos MORI will send out invitations to GB households requesting consent to access their smart meter data. Potential participants will also be asked to complete a short contextual survey. A third wave of recruitment is planned for later in 2020

Accessing SERL data

An important milestone has been reached as the first SERL dataset has been made available to SERL consortium researchers.

The Smart Energy Research Lab Exploratory Data 2019-2020 (Study Number 8643) has been placed on the UK Data Service Secure Lab. This initial dataset is available to consortium partners for exploratory analysis purposes. Documentation about the dataset is publicly available via the above link.

The SERL website has been updated to provide full detail on the criteria researchers will need to meet to gain access to the SERL data. See: https://serl.ac.uk/researchers/

We advise those wishing to access SERL data in the near future to begin going through the various steps in order to be ready to submit applications when the data is available to accredited UK researchers.

The first SERL dataset for access by eligible UK researchers will be available via the UKDS Secure Lab in August and the full SERL researcher portal is scheduled to be launched in September.

Smart Meter Rollout Update

Latest figures from the Smart Data Communications Company (DCC) show that the number of SMETS2 smart meters on the GB network (as of 23rd July 2020) was 4,571,944 with 161,198,763 messages sent across the network in June. 661,970 SMETS1 meters have been migrated to SMETS2. For more details please visit the Smart DCC website.

COVID-19 project

1083 of the 1700 SERL pilot participants that were contacted to take part in the UCL/CREDS The short and long-term impact of COVID-19 on building energy demand and future decarbonisation project responded by filling in an online or paper survey. The survey has now closed and the project team are planning their analysis of the data.

Public Interest Advisory Group (PIAG)

On 10th July a PIAG-2 series workshop took place on ‘the potential public-interest value of smart-meter data to devolved government and local authorities’. A report from the workshop will be available in the autumn. The next workshop on ‘the potential additionality of smart-meter data in appraising Heat Policy’ will be held in November.

A report from the April workshop entitled ‘Regulatory assessments and system efficiency: potential benefits of smart-meter energy-consumption data’ – authored by Maxine Frerk – is available now on the PIAG website alongside slides from the workshop.