Residential Monitoring to Decrease Energy Use and Carbon Emissions in Europe

The project evaluated how much electricity could be saved by the use of the most efficient appliances and by the reduction of standby consumption. The research focused mainly new electronic loads such as: entertainment, information and communication technologies, stand-by consumption, lighting, as well as air conditioning in some southern countries. In Central and Eastern Europe, because of lack of reliable data, white appliances have also been targeted. A large-scale monitoring campaign in 12 countries and a consumer survey have been carried out: 100 households have been audited per country and 500 detailed questionnaires have been collected in each country. The measurement campaign was performed in about 1,300 households and the survey involved the collection of 6,000 questionnaires. About 11,500 single appliances were analysed. The appliances were grouped into 24 appliance groups or “end-uses”. The time interval for the measurements was 10 minutes, collected over a period of about two weeks. The collected data, both from monitoring and from the survey, is accessible from the European Residential Electricity Consumption Database developed online.