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https://reneweconomy.com.au/living-lab-seeks-citizen-scientists-to-share-home-energy-data-and-help-get-consumer-transition-right/>
"Australia’s premier science agency, the CSIRO, is looking to recruit thousands
of ordinary people to become citizen scientists in a new “living lab” that will
gather and analyse real-world energy data from households and businesses across
the country.
The major new research effort is part of the CSIRO’s National Energy Analysis
Centre (NEAC), which was launched on Thursday as a vital research tool to help
steer Australia’s energy transition with greater clarity and coordination and
to de-risk it – particularly for consumers.
A key part of the NEAC will be the Living Lab, which aims to tap the anonymised
energy data from thousands of households and businesses using state-of-the-art
energy system modelling, analysis and visualisation tools, as well as
old-fashioned surveys.
NEAC director, Stephen Craig, says the opt-in Living Lab program is about
getting a much better and broader view of how regular people use energy and to
develop effective infrastructure, regulations and programs at lowest cost to
consumers.
“The recognition is that, at the end of the day, energy is a means to an end –
it’s how energy is being used in the home and businesses that really matters,”
Craig tells
Renew Economy.
“There’s more and more of the energy system that’s in the hands of us, ordinary
users with our solar panels and batteries and [electric vehicles] and and so
on.
“What we want to do is to have this consistent national source of trusted
information for energy planners and policy makers and innovators to get the
balance right going forward for the future system.”
Craig says some of the inspiration for the Living Lab has come from the UK,
where they have been establishing a living lab to inform the distributed energy
transition that has been growing successfully over several years and now
incorporates more than 5000 homes.
He says the “embyro” for the Australian version will recruit around 40
households, but will the official launch of the NEAC this week it will be
opening expression of interest for more and then looking to scale to around
1,000 over the coming 12 months or so.
“One of the key differentiators for this living lab compared to others that
have been done is that this is distributed with the ambition to be as
representative as we can of Australian society,” Craig says. “So different
geographies, different demographics, different levels of engagement in energy.”
CSIRO is inviting Australian residents 18 years old and over to sign up to the
Living Lab, which Craig stresses is completely voluntary and all data shared
will be de-identified and aggregated."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
