Information on Loughborough

loughborough university to cut domestic fuel bills

Posted on 04/08/07
P. Klein

energy saving house in LoughboroughLoughborough University is playing a key role in a new 0.57 million project aimed at significantly reducing the amount of energy consumed by UK households.

The indeedNET (Integration and Demonstration of Energy Efficient Dwelling Networks) project will focus on the development of a high tech wireless home energy management system. This will enable households to monitor and control their energy use when they are at the property and when they are away from home.

The system will take into account weather conditions, such as temperature, rain and light levels outside, to provide the optimum home environment using the least amount of energy. This will include reducing or switching off the central heating system, opening or closing windows and controlling lighting.

As well as being able to manage their home environment from within the property, the system will also allow users to securely and safely control their home remotely from anywhere in the world using a mobile device such as a mobile phone or laptop.

Shuang-Hua Yang, Professor of Networks and Control in the Universitys Department of Computer Science, said: "This project will aim to reduce domestic energy use for every family home in the UK by 40 percent. Not only will this be better for the environment, it will also help homeowners to significantly reduce their energy bills.

Currently a large number of devices are on the market for controlling home equipment, either from the home or via the internet. Commercially optimizers and compensators for heating systems have been available for large installations for almost 2 decades, however this is the first time inLoughborough has heard of proposals for their wide scale domestic use. Certainly a 40% drop in fuel bills will be an amazing achievement.

The system will be demonstrated at a purpose-built test house based at the University campus.

Further information.

If you are interested in home automation then Googling home automation will bring up a wealth of sites that may be of interest.

News report by P. Klein