Optimizing At-Home Feedback to Increase Residential Energy Conservation

This project will develop and study low-cost monitoring and feedback devices to reduce residential energy consumption. The design team is a trans-disciplinary collaboration to simultaneously optimize the economic, engineering and psychological factors. Devices will be distributed throughout a home to provide immediate ambient feedback and communicate with a hub to provide web-based feedback. A study will measure the effectiveness of the different monitoring and feedback configurations in reducing energy consumption through in-home testing, focus group, and quantitative analyses. Research findings from the study will determine key aspects of the system design and contribute to the literature on energy feedback.