A long-term study of energy eco-feedback using non-intrusive load monitoring

Electricity consumption in households is responsible for a significant portion of the total use, making this an important problem to tackle in the broader sustainability field. Researchers often report that raising users’ awareness of their consumption results in real savings. Here we present the results of a long-term study of a low cost nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) and ecofeedback system capable of providing real time and historical consumption information. The system was deployed in 13 single houses and apartments in an urban area in Portugal. 58 weeks after the deployment it was observed that, even though the users were more aware of their consumption, no significant steps were taken to decrease it