Occupancy based household energy disaggregation using ultra wideband radar and electrical signature profiles

Human behaviour and occupancy accounts for a substantial proportion of variation in the energy efficiency profile of domestic buildings. Yet while people often claim that they would like to reduce their energy bills, rhetoric frequently fails to match action due to the effort involved in understanding and changing deeply engrained energy consumption habits. Here, we present and, through dedicated experiments, test in-house developed software to remotely identify appliance energy usage within buildings, using energy equipment which could be placed at the electricity meter location. Furthermore, we monitor and compare the occupancy of the location under study through Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radar technology and compare the resulting data with those received from the power monitoring software, via time synchronization. These signals when mapped together can potentially provide both occupancy and specific appliances power consumption, which could enable energy usage segregation on a yet impossible scale as well as usage attributable to occupancy behaviour. Such knowledge forms the basis for the implementation of automated energy saving actions based on a households unique energy profile.