You can find how EUC works and related questions
How does EUC work?This feature splits the whole home energy usage into 11 different energy usage categories. Energy Usage Categories helps homeowners to better understand their energy usage and learn what appliances consumes the most energy. This can, for example, inform the user what energy-saving measure would have the greatest impact or understand what has caused a change in their energy consumption.
As consumers are struggling to understand their energy usage, energy disaggregation or Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (referred to as NILM or disaggregation) offers the possibility of interpreting whole-home energy consumption recorded by smart meters, providing the user with a whole-home overview of where they use their energy.
Energy Usage Categories is a combination of NILM algorithms with a variety of analytical techniques, combined with a statistical model, influenced by the Home Profile settings by the user.
Eliq combines a statistical rule-based approach with end-user input and a number of disaggregation methods. This provides a reliable result that improves with user engagement.
To ensure integrity and credibility, we only want to show energy usage categories when we have a high chance of having good accuracy. End users that deviate from standard usage patterns or users that have a high mismatch between our simulated values and their actual energy usage are noted in our system, and the result is flagged with “LOW” accuracy. The application layer should use this to make informed decisions of how to manage the users’ expectations, such as changing the wording around how the data is presented.
Can this estimate for [category] really be true?
We use all available data to create as good estimate as we can and for the vast majority of homes the analysis is accurate, but keep in mind that this is an estimate that may differ from reality.
In what category do I find my [appliance]?
Categories that are shown are where users can understand how much energy is used for that specific category.
Eliq constantly refines the EUC and adds new categories where it is possible and where it makes sense in order to clarify consumption data as much as possible. When we are able to identify a new category it will show up in the app and no longer be counted as “other”
What things are in the “Other” category?
There are a few activities in the home that are too small to have its own category, for example vacuum cleaning. In some cases, we might also detect usage that we can´t categorize at all and this energy is then also sorted under the Other category.
Can you explain what “Always on” is?
Sorted under this category is all energy that is constantly used in the home. The source could be a large number of different devices. For example, devices in standby-mode such as TV and stereo but also ventilation or a fridge freezer that is constantly running.
What happen, on the historical disaggregation, when the user change his home profile ?
We currently use the most up to data home profile for the analytics (similar homes, breakdown) for current and historical ones. It means that if the user change the home profile it will be reflected to historical and future disaggregation.