CADENCE: Carbon Futures for European households

The objective of the project was to verify the potentials of domestic consumers of electrical energy in optimising their consumption, by using other forms of energy, essentially natural gas or renewable energies. 25 audits in 25 Portuguese homes were done during 1998, covering a total of 83 habitants. The audits aimed at the evaluation of the use of different forms of energy by the consumer, before and after the conversion to natural gas. These consumption were discriminated for the appliances of water heating and cookers, as well as the global consumption of electrical energy of the home during a period of 8 days. After the conversion to NG and the alteration or not of the appliances referred earlier, new consumption readings were done, now fed with natural gas. The aims of the project were: characterise each of the equipment used by the consumers; analyse the load diagrams of the domestic equipment that mostly influenced the peak of the diagram; study the opportunities of change in every case; analyse the reasons why the domestic consumers did or did not make a fuel change and identify the situations in which the domestic consumers would make a fuel change.