It’s about what you’re doing: activity-based energy informatics for domestic energy reduction

The Project
Domestic energy reduction is an important priority to help meet the challenge of decarbonisation of housing stock. Research shows that giving occupants information about energy helps them act to reduce their energy use. There is much interest in disaggregation of energy usage to show what energy gets used on want appliances. However, social science research suggests that people do not think in terms of energy or energy savings as such, but use energy to support activities like cooking, cleaning, laundry, entertainment and so on: the activity is the focus, not what energy it is using. For energy behaviour to change, information about activities may be more useful than appliance disaggregation. This research will involve researching how domestic energy informatics could be organised around activities to show what energy goes on what activity and how the activity could be done differently to bring about energy reductions. The PhD will involve working with domestic energy behaviour data to disaggregate into activities (rather than appliances) and the design of informatics and activity simulations to be evaluated in real homes.

John’s area is domestic energy behaviour change. The disciplinary areas are computer science and human computer interaction – they are not engineering projects (electrical or civil), although they may well make use of pre-existing sensing systems. Candidates will need to be able to design and code prototype software; and potentially some hardware, too. The topics also require ability to carry out user studies and analyses using qualitative and quantitative techniques.

Supervisory teams ideally may have computer scientists (energy informatics and information visualisation); social scientists (user studies to conceptualise behaviour and leveraging design requirements); supervisors with an interest in simple hardware design for capturing energy information; and people interested in data analytics.

Duration: 3 years Fixed Term (Studentships are available to commence during academic year 15/16- start date January/April 2016)

About the Centre/Department
The Centre for Low Impact Building’s (CLIB) aims to be an academic and industry partner of choice in delivering real solutions to close the design versus in-use performance gap in the built environment.

CLIB staff enjoy a vibrant environment of collaboration across academic disciplines, other universities, practionners and industry to ensure that our research has proven impact on the global challenge for sustainability of the built environment that includes human factors.

Successful Applicants
- A minimum of a 2:1 first degree in a relevant discipline/subject area with a minimum 60% mark in the Project element or equivalent with a minimum 60% overall module average.

- In the event of a first degree classification of less than 2:1, a Masters Degree in a relevant subject area will be considered as an equivalent. The Masters must have been attained with overall marks at merit level (60%). In addition, the dissertation or equivalent element in the Masters must also have been attained with a mark at merit level (60%), or

- a taught Masters degree in a relevant discipline, involving a dissertation of standard length written in English in the relevant subject area with a minimum of a merit profile: 60% overall module average and a minimum of a 60% dissertation mark

Additionally:
- the potential to engage in innovative research and to complete the PhD within a three-year period of study
- a minimum of English language proficiency (IELTS overall minimum score of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component)

Find out how to apply: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-students/how-to-apply/

See the website: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-students/research-studentships/its-about-what-youre-doing-activity-based-energy-informatics-for-domestic-energy-reduction/