New Zealand's Home-Energy Check-Up turns house walks into dollar savings

A new academic prototype aims to put energy savings directly into the hands of New Zealand homeowners. The Home-Energy Check-Up (New Zealand), created by researcher Abdollah Baghaei Daemei, is a single-file Python Streamlit application that transforms energy advice into an interactive decision-support tool. The system guides users through a seven-step guided inspection, collects minimal household data (building type, heating source, hot water system), and applies transparent, low-high savings estimation formulas. The output is a prioritized, behavior-first roadmap that converts immediate actions (like sealing drafts) into a staged save-to-upgrade pathway, complete with visual analytics and a downloadable certificate of completion.

The tool is explicitly positioned as an educational workflow, not a certified energy audit or compliance check. It uses session-state navigation, a household input dataclass, a recommendation-ranking layer, and anonymous Google Sheets persistence. The prototype estimates annual savings using conservative ranges—for example, fixing a leaky window might save NZ$50–NZ$150 per year. Daemei identifies several research-grade improvements needed before the tool can be used for validated impact assessment: external validation against measured energy data, robust concurrent data writes, clearer uncertainty calibration, accessibility testing, and formal user evaluation. The paper's key contribution is a reproducible architecture for turning household energy advice into a gamified, data-light decision-support pathway tailored for New Zealand homes.