Hourly energy consumption data gathered from 94 (originally 160) low energy homes in Milton Keynes Energy Park (1989-1991). These homes were of conventional design for the UK (35 different designs) but included energy efficiency features (primarily increased insulation in the roof, wall, and flooring and energy efficient boilers) so that they correspond with SAP values of 75-90. The results were used to generate a database of energy consumption data to assist in development of the Building Research Establishment Domestic Energy Model (BREDEM). The
ReadMe_MiltonKeynes.html file contains more detailed information about the datasets. Registration with EDC is required for access to the data.
This data was originally collected by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) during a project in 1988-91 in an area then known as Milton Keynes Energy Park, located some 75 km north-west of London. The study monitored more than 100 sites for hourly electricity and gas consumption; the dwellings essentially follow conventional UK housing design, but were built in 1987 to higher standards for energy performance than were required by the building regulations at that time (Edwards, 1990). They incorporated energy efficiency features, such as increased floor, wall, and loft insulation, double-glazing, and in some cases condensing boilers, so that they broadly corresponded to UK building standards of almost a decade later.
The data has been rescued off the original 5.25 inch floppy disks by Steve Pretlove of UCL towards his PhD thesis and has since been cleaned and further processed by Alex Summerfield. Data were successfully retrieved for 94 sites with more than 200 days of valid date each. Some building data, including floor areas and U-values were recovered, unfortunately related social data, such as the number of occupants in each household, were not available.
Reference: J. Edwards (1990), Low energy dwellings in the Milton Keynes Energy Park, Energy Management v26 p32-33.
See also: numerous internal Buildings Research Establishment (BRE) reports.
Note that there are some missing data points largely due to problems of recovery from the original media (the data from July 1989 are missing from many data sets) but nonetheless there are many sites with > 12 months of data.