Look Back before Leaping Forward: Four Decades of Domestic Energy Inquiry

I recently read the following article on domestic energy monitoring in the IEEE Pervasive Computing magazine:

Hazas M, Friday A, Scott J. Look Back before Leaping Forward: Four Decades of Domestic Energy Inquiry. Pervasive Computing, IEEE. 2011;10(1):13-19.

This article really highlights the interdisciplinary nature of domestic energy management. It covers the following areas to a shallow level of detail:

• Personalised feedback
• Energy monitoring hardware
• Consumption analysis software (including NIALM)
• Consumer behaviour

It was actually this article which made me aware of Microsoft's Hohm, among many other existing products for domestic energy monitoring. The authors also mention the AlertMe system as one solution to online energy management. However, the AlertMe system is described as a 'closed system', I assume due to lack of public knowledge of their data APIs.

Although the article covers the area of non-intrusive energy monitoring in little depth, it was still of great value to me. The wide range of references has encouraged me to look specifically at domestic energy audits and studies of energy feedback mechanisms. These will be most relevant to my field when describing the real-world setting of the problem and the barriers faced so far.