天美传媒

The rising costs of energy bills can be a monthly stressor for homeowners and renters and utility bills soared higher than ever thi蝉听. Researchers at 天美传媒 have been tackling the problem from multiple angles, developing technology that makes homes use heating and cooling systems more efficiently, and proposing new rate structures for utility companies.听听听听

A robot that monitors a home鈥檚 energy efficiency

and Ph.D candidate in 天美传媒鈥檚 School of Architecture want to improve how the inside of a home feels to its inhabitants without raising costs. That means keeping rooms at a comfortable temperature and ensuring there鈥檚 good air quality and a healthy amount of light.听

To do that, they designed a mobile sensing device that can move unobtrusively throughout a home or apartment and collect data from each room like temperature and air quality. They say its movement style will be similar to that of a robot vacuum cleaner that automatically moves from room to room sweeping up dust and debris as it goes.听

鈥淎 Roomba roams around your house because it knows that dust doesn鈥檛 stay in one place,鈥� said Cochran听Hameen, an associate professor in the School of Architecture and co-director of the听. 鈥淭he same thing should be true for an environmental sensor: It needs the ability to move to understand which rooms are warmer or cooler. We believe its ability to move solves a common problem: In so many homes, the thermostat that鈥檚 controlling your environment is stuck on a wall that鈥檚 not located in the area where you spend most of your time, which means it鈥檚 probably not adequately addressing your needs.鈥�

For example, a thermostat located near an exterior door could have a much lower temperature reading than the rest of a home, while a thermostat on a particularly sunny wall will register the house as being much hotter than it actually is.

Cochran Hameen and Pathak are partnering with the听 to create the affordable, deployable robot that they hope consumers could purchase at any big box retail store and easily customize when they get home. Once it鈥檚 set up, users will be able to view what the device鈥檚 sensors pick up on their phone.听

The innovation of this device will go beyond movement. The key to making all these systems work in harmony with one another 鈥� regardless of the brand or design 鈥� is creating an algorithm that allows them to communicate compatibly through the environmental sensing device.听

鈥淲e are building a system that allows all your systems to talk to each other,鈥� Cochran Hameen said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important for your thermostat to be able to communicate with your air quality monitor. For example, maybe you don鈥檛 need to turn on a ton of lights, but you should open the blinds and open a window for fresh air and everything would improve without using more energy.鈥澨�

Cochran Hameen and Pathak have already begun to put their research into practice by partnering with Pittsburgh residents in Homewood to help improve the quality of living indoors in the neighborhood.听

鈥淲e conducted classes with residents who were interested in learning more about the device,鈥� said听Pathak. 鈥淣ot every building has a thermostat, and many are not well insulated. We wanted to train residents on how to use the robots with the aim that using the robots on a large scale could be a pathway to employment as people collect indoor data for buildings in the area and learn how to make operational, maintenance and retrofit decisions.鈥�

Cochran Hameen said that it was important for the research team to partner with Pittsburgh residents to bridge the gap between research conducted in a lab and real-world deployment.

鈥淎 couple of the people in our classes realized 鈥� using the robots 鈥� that their rental homes were just not good,鈥� Hameen said. 鈥淥ne woman reached out to her landlord and said 鈥楳y home has mold in it, this is bad, and I鈥檇 like it fixed.鈥� Because she had data to back up her request, she was able to get her landlord to respond to her needs.鈥�

Finding the right temperature听

Heating and cooling systems can represent more than 50% of the energy usage of a home, according to , the Alex Hills Career Development Associate Professor in the听蝉听 补苍诲听 departments. For that reason, she believes it鈥檚 really important to understand how people would prefer to heat or cool their home if cost wasn鈥檛 a limiting factor.听

鈥淲hen we talk about energy affordability, too often people just focus on the cost of the bill, but they don鈥檛 focus enough on how people are using energy in their home,鈥澨齆ock said. 鈥淭hat really misses the point of energy systems. For example, if I spent $0 on a phone bill, but I couldn鈥檛 call or text anyone, you wouldn鈥檛 say that my phone bill was affordable because I wasn鈥檛 able to communicate with anyone.鈥�

Focusing on the cost alone doesn鈥檛 factor in the temperature that feels most comfortable to the resident, which is why using more energy efficient systems don鈥檛 guarantee lower energy bills, Nock said. Many people limit how often they run their air conditioner window units or how high they set the thermostat in the winter to save money. This can put them at risk of heat stroke or their pipes freezing. Installing an energy efficient system will use less energy and lower the cost of a utility bill but it also simultaneously frees up cash to make a home a little cooler in the summer or warmer in the winter.听

鈥淏ecause we don鈥檛 ask people 鈥榠s 76 degrees comfortable to you in the summer?鈥� we don鈥檛 know what they actually听prefer,鈥� Nock said, 鈥淪omeone may want it cooler but they can only spend a limited amount of money on their bill each month. Now if I get an energy efficient system, I might be able to afford additional cooling and knock it down to 73 degrees.鈥�

Changing how utilities bill consumers

Nock said making home energy affordable will require policymakers and utility companies to drastically rethink how home utility bills are structured. In her proposal, utilities would charge a flat-rate access fee that covers the minimum amount of energy a home uses and guarantees predictable billing, and then charge an incremental rate on top of that.

鈥淚 think if we look at history, the energy industry may move to a block structure like the telecom industry did,鈥� Nock said. 鈥淲hen cell phones first came out, we all had to pay per unit of usage 鈥� minutes, texts, the fees were different depending on the time of day. But now, we typically have unlimited talk and text and some level of data. A consumer pays for access to the telecom network. You have the option to pay more for additional services on top of this, but there is a guaranteed level of access for your monthly fee.鈥�

In her most recent research project, Nock calculated the baseline, essential need for energy in a 1,000 square foot, one-bedroom home that has a fridge, one lightbulb per room, a water heater, and basic heating and cooling. The amount of electricity needed in the home to meet basic needs ranged from 600 kWh-1,300 kWh depending on the heating type.听

鈥淯tilities like electricity and gas have been treated as a commodity since the first companies popped up. But now we鈥檙e hearing about affordability challenges more and more because people are realizing energy is a need, not a commodity,鈥� Nock said. 鈥淎s an energy industry we really have to think about how we鈥檙e going to allow people to meet their basic energy needs in an affordable way. I think it starts by asking what should come with the fixed fee we pay every month.鈥澨�