Dr Despina Manouseli presented a poster on the IMPETUS domestic hot water demand model at the annual Behavior Energy and Climate Conference in Sacramento, California in October 2017.
The poster presented a novel, practices-based approach to hot water demand estimation ‘under normal conditions’ using microsimulation to forecast seasonal demand at the household level under various water/energy conservation scenarios.
The models suggest that the installation of efficient showerheads appears to have a substantial impact on not only water consumption but also, as a consequence, energy demand. Future work will assess the effect of scenarios of other ‘water efficiency’ interventions as well as ‘water use’ behaviour change on energy demand. We hope this will identify opportunities for water-energy nexus interventions to reduce demand on both resources at the same time.