Apps for optimised energy usage. Visualization and behaviour.

Abstract: This study investigates the possibilities to provide the end consumers of energy with information and statistics about their consumption in the form of a smartphone application. The report includes both electricity and district heating, but the focus is on electricity consumption. Earlier studies show potential savings up to 15-20% when real time energy usage information is supplied to the end user. Savings up to 10% can be achieved when historical usage information is presented to the user afterwards. The infrastructure needed to supply real time consumption data is in most cases in place, but the meter values are not made available by the local grid operating companies who own the meters. Changes in the legislation that will open the meter data market for competition are under way, and this will make possible for third party companies to offer energy visualization solutions. The functionality for the conceptual application that was built as a part of this thesis was specified by a medium size municipal energy trading company from the south of Sweden. The Android OS was chosen as the platform as this is one of the biggest and fastest growing smartphone platforms. The application can fetch consumption data from a server and present these as well as energy saving advices for the user. The application can also fetch real time consumption data from a clip-on meter, making it a good base for further development when official real time meter values are made available in the near future.