Home Energy Efficiency

Energy costs show a constantly rising trend and bind an ever larger part of the available income. Therefore measures targeting at energy conservation  have a great economical importance.

On the other hand, national metering point operators are obligated to install so-called smart meters in every household from the beginning of 2010, which will help to facilitate new energy services with near real-time characteristics and serve to support the realization of smart grid applications. These applications will facilitate the reduction of energy consumption and costs,  but they will only gain user acceptance if housing comfort is not impaired by energy efficiency measures.

The DAI-CC NGS and CC ACT have developed Software Assistant Solutions to be deployed in the home context, that support the user of a smart home in achieving his sustainability goals without impairing his comfort and lifestyle. Within the SerCHo project, the Smart Home Energy Assistant was developed, which is a self-learning system for energy consumption control to exploit the potential of smart meters and derive estimations on the expected power consumption in the future by analyzing the behaviour of the inhabitants. Furthermore, it can visualize energy consumption of single appliances and appliance groups for a chosen time span and serves to integrate new automization rules to enhance energy efficiency. The Smart Home Energy Asssistant is one initiatives of the DAI-Lab to foster and research sustainability in Smart Home Environments. Further approaches in this domain are pooled and promoted in the Innovation Center Vernetztes Leben – Connected Living.