What is it about?
The kettle is one of the most used appliances in United Kingdom (UK) households. This paper provides data processing tools for analysing kettle usage patterns from electrical load measurements. First, mathematical modelling is developed to relate energy usage, water temperature and volume, which enables studying kettle overfilling patterns using power measurements only. Then, a method for forecasting kettle load demand is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is demonstrated using data from a longitudinal study across a sample of 14 UK households for a two-year period.
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Why is it important?
The kettle is one of the most used appliances in the United Kingdom (UK) as well as the appliance with the highest rates of ownership. However, it is also one of the most inefficiently used appliances, since many households regularly overfill their kettle. In order to meet energy targets, it is imperative to quantify inefficient usage and predict future demand. For the purposes of scalability, the paper proposes analytical tools that depend only on load measurement data for quantifying and visualizing kettle usage and energy consumption, assessing energy wastage through overfilling via the proposed electric kettle model, and predicting kettle-specific demand, from which potential energy savings in a household can be estimated. The tools presented are not only applicable to the kettle, they can also be used for other appliances.
Perspectives
The paper uses results from a longitudinal study across a sample of 14 UK households for a two-year period, to develop and demonstrate analytical tools for estimating electricity footprint generated by kettle and predict future demand. The paper studies different kettle usage routines, compares consumption across households with different demographics, and includes a case study that compares conventional kettle and smart/eco kettle usage and energy consumption. The key difference with related papers is that we use actual data from smart meters for each household, instead of averaging across household demographics.
Dr Vladimir Stankovic
University of Strathclyde
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Understanding usage patterns of electric kettle and energy saving potential, Applied Energy, June 2016, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.03.038.
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