Verena Tiefenbeck

Self-powered water meter for direct feedback

Hot water usage accounts for 16% of household demand for energy, much more than lighting and cooking (5% each) and is comparable to electricity usage for appliances (21%). As a means of helping consumers to save hot water, we present a novel self-powered water consumption sensor that enables direct consumption feedback. We equipped 91 Swiss households with the sensors and recorded 3,164 individual showers during the period of three months. The presence of feedback during a shower resulted in the reduction of average shower water consumption from 79 l to 61 l (-22.2%) per day and household. In addition to savings attributable to already installed flow restrictors, an average household could conserve 6,400 l of drinking water and 210 kWh of heat energy (projected to one year). Furthermore, we show that the effects of direct feedback on water consumption did not decline over the course of the study.

6th DACH+ Conference on Energy informatics (EnInf 2017)

This volume contains the scientific contributions accepted for presentation at the 6th DACH+ Conference on Energy Informatics (EnInf 2017). The objective of the DACH+ conference series on Energy Informatics is to promote the research, development, and implementation of information and communication technologies in the energy domain and to foster the exchange between academia, industry, and service providers across Germany (D), Austria (A) and Switzerland (CH) and their neighboring countries (DACH+). The Energy Informatics conference series is a joint initiative of the Swiss FederalOffice ofEnergy, theAustrianMinistry forTransport, Innovation and Technology, and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and is also supported by the German Informatics Society, the Austrian Computer Society, and the Swiss Informatics Society. The 6th edition of the conference took place in Lugano, Switzerland, on October 5–6, 2017 at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). More than 90 participants from six different European countries as well as the USA attended the event. This makes the 2017 edition one of the most successful in terms of number of attendees and diversity. The conference provided a forum for very vivid discussion between researchers and also offered the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with several representatives from industry. As in the previous years, the conference was accompanied by a Ph.D. workshop organized by Prof. Sebastian Lehnhoff and Dr. Astrid Niesse, which took place the day before the conference. We would like to thank the

Mechatronics to drive environmental sustainability: Measuring, visualizing and transforming consumer patterns on a large scale

In order to reduce our societys dependence on fossil fuels, the energy sector has started to undergo massive changes. Information and communications technology (ICT) increasingly plays a key role in this transformation, both on the supply and demand side. While 85% of the residential energy in the DACH region is consumed by space and water heating, the vast majority of work in the energy informatics field does not focus on these two critical end uses. And yet, the discipline could contribute greatly to reducing consumption and emissions in this area - often with a close nexus to electricity. Besides, direct, real-time feedback on hot water consumption has a particularly high savings potential and can further broaden the sphere of impact of the energy informatics discipline. This paper describes a self-powered energy and water meter that provides users with such feedback in the shower. After an earlier proof of concept study with 60 households together with the Swiss Federal Office of Energy that yielded average energy and water savings of 22%, the smart shower meter has been developed into a mass-market compatible application that has been installed in 8,000 households. This was accompanied by a study with 700 households to verify its practical viability, consumer engagement, and effectiveness in the field. The device showcases a practical example of how ICT applications can be successfully implemented at scale to transform consumption patterns in emission-intense domains, also beyond electricity.

Providing primary frequency control with residential scale photovoltaic-battery systems

Decentralized photovoltaic (PV) battery systems have recently received great attention from consumers around the world. PV battery systems allow consumers to reduce their dependence on the local electricity supplier at lower or equivalent costs. However, the profitability of PV battery systems depends greatly on the local meteorological conditions and the local electricity retail tariff. In central European countries, PV battery systems generate and store less electricity in winter months due to lower irradiation. The battery, in particular, can be reserved to provide ancillary services during winter months and thereby improves the overall systems economics. In this study, a large dataset consisting of individual load profiles is used to simulate a virtual power plant which provides ancillary services during battery idle times. The results show that participants with large batteries can greatly increase their overall systems economics by participating in reserve markets. However, participants with small battery capacities may not be able to recover the additional costs for communication with the virtual power plant and are thus not suitable candidates to provide grid stabilizing services (ancillary services).