The launch of a £3 million research project will lead to a comprehensive behavioural study involving thousands of householders, focused on heat and energy consumption in the UK.

The study is part of the Energy Technologies Institute ‘s (ETI) £100 million Smart Systems and Heat (SSH) technology programme launched in April by the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

The aim of the programme is to design and demonstrate the first of its kind, smart energy system in the UK.

The ETI is focused on the acceleration of the development of affordable, secure and sustainable technologies that will help the UK meet its legally binding 2050 climate change targets.

Rebecca Sweeney, ETI project manager, said: “The ETI’s national energy modelling work identifies more efficient use of energy as an immediate development priority for the UK. This research will ultimately help to identify trends in real mass-market consumer behaviour, requirements and profiles in order to help us in our goal to design and communicate an effective smart energy system design for the UK market.”

This latest announcement builds on the recent call by the ETI to employ up to three organisations to deliver a three-month project to understand and identify current energy system information and communications technology (ICT) capabilities for smart energy systems.

The consortium will be led by environment consultant PRP, in collaboration with University College London’s Energy Institute. Both organisations will be assisted by Frontier Economics, The Technology Partnership and The Peabody Trust. The consumer engagement work will be carried out by National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and Hitachi, an associate on the ETI programme, will also contribute to the project’s delivery.