Digital Home Energy Management System (DEHEMS)

Key Facts

• DEHEMS aims to extend the current state of the art in intelligent meters, moving beyond energy ‘input’ models that monitor the levels of energy being used to an ‘energy performance model’ that also looks at the way in which the energy is used.

• DEHEMS will bring together sensor data in areas such as household heat loss and appliance performance as well as energy usage monitoring to give real time information on emissions and the energy performance of appliances and services. It will enable changes to be made to those appliances/services remotely from the mobile phone or PC and provide specific energy efficiency recommendations, for the household. The project uses a Living Labs model, working with householders in 4 cities across the EU.  Living Labs takes a human-centric involvement and its potential for development of new ICT-based services and products.

  The impact will be to personalise action on climate change, and so help enable new policies such as Personal Carbon Allowances as well as supporting the move towards increased localized generation and distribution of energy.  DEHEMS also promotes the use of intelligent energy monitoring for electricity and gas.
  

• The project took 30 months to implement
• Engaging citizens in practical ways they can reduce their carbon footprint
• The actual (or likely) cost of the project is 2 million EURO
• The actual (or projected) savings from the project are not known at this stage – savings will be in carbon for individual households
• The primary sponsor for the project was The European Commission's 7th Framework Programme for R&D

What was the impact?

• Did you use a specific methodology or third party to calculate CO2e or KWh savings?

  Measurements are taken from sensors within the homes
• This saving will be made over 12 months
• The project has no verification for results

Making it Happen

• Barriers experienced during the initiation of the project