Funding: UKRI Economic and Social Research Council Grant Ref: ES/Z504671/1

Partners: Energy Systems Catapult (lead), Universities of Oxford, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds Becket University, UCL, Counting Lab

Summary

SENSE will be the national service for smart energy systems data, unlocking the value of smart data (e.g., consumer behaviour, electric vehicles, consumption, networks) to enable high-impact cutting-edge multidisciplinary research, innovation and joined-up policy solutions to the biggest sustainability, health and wellbeing and Net Zero policy challenges.

We create a comprehensive data service focused on two specific, and inter-related, use cases which require integration and visualisation of complex datasets from multiple stakeholders (which to date has not been achieved).

The use cases are inherently multidisciplinary, integrating smart behavioural and energy data with more slowly evolving socio-demographic data to unlock the power of smart data for multidisciplinary research, e.g. into more just and equitable transition. This research will deliver critical insights and catalyse innovation to support the UK in delivering its decarbonisation and net zero ambitions alongside significant societal, economic and political benefit in the short to medium term.

Our identified use cases address

1. Equitable deployment of EV charging infrastructure;

2. Stakeholder behaviours and their impact on energy use in the built environment.

Objectives

SENSE will achieve

1. acquiring, stewarding and enabling access to critical datasets for identified use cases;

2. provide a user-friendly data service making data findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable;

3. build capacity across the research community by enabling novel multi-disciplinary research inquiry significantly augmenting existing UKRI and institutional research investments.

Achieving these objectives will directly address SENSE, and the Catapult’s, ultimate aims of enabling the UK’s just and secure net zero transition.